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Im looking at getting one of these for Chrimbo for my son, who is into his road biking in a big way but is frustrated by lack of road knowledge, and this is made worse by me working away for large chunks of the year. Im confused which software is required for him to make up his own routes and the gps to 'navigate' for him..is it the 'City Navigator' software that is required?
Of the official bundles then yes the City Navigator maps are best for road routing. You can also use open source maps that are apparently pretty good for road stuff but I've never used them (would save a fair bit on the cost though). In terms of plotting routes you're better of using one of the websites around for this rather than Garmin's own software, my preference is www.bikehike.co.uk
Assuming the 800 works like my two Garmins, you'll be able to install Basecamp on a PC and connect to/use the GPS mapping to plan rides.
My main confusion is what he needs for the GPS itself to navigate for him, show him turns in the road etc. I believe the base model is rather poor at this (from what i can gather), so either 1:50k or the City Navigator maps are required...am i correct in this, and which one is best for road navigation?
City Navigator is ideal for on-road use.
The free OpenStreetMap maps are very good, and allow you to do turn-by-turn navigvation. I prefer them to the Ordnance Survey maps for road riding as they're less cluttered. I've never tried the City Navigator maps.
This site: http://garmin.openstreetmap.nl/ will create you a map for selected regions that you can load straight onto an SD card for use in your GPS. I've got most of Western Europe on a single SD card with enough detail that it'll navigate me to my local corner shop by name!
The problem with OSM is that it is "crowd-sourced" - i.e. it's full of holes and inconsistencies.
You need the city navigator map, this gives you full road mapping for most of Europe. This mapping looks like a Garmin car satnav screen.
You can plan routes on Garmin connect very easily for road.