Here\'s a cheap option.
Get an old phone (doesn\'t need sim or any data connectivity), turn GPS on, strap to arm, fire up MapMyFitness app, track your route. Bob\'s your Uncle!

I had similar issues with the old bulky Garmin (310XT in particular) so I went down the Tomtom road. If you just want a cheap GPS watch they\'re a good option, retaining basically all the features you want. Having it download over a cable is nice and when you do that, while you need to have a tomtom account, it also creates a gpx (or tcx etc) on your computer. The big worry with Tomtom is they\'ve stopped making them so support down the line may be hard to come by. There are also some finicky things, like the lap button is touch screen which doesn\'t work super well when wet or it won\'t pair with a HRM once running has stated. The GPS reception is fine but if you\'re doing detailed quickroute analysis it\'s for sure not as good as Garmin. I wouldn\'t be confident in it for mapping but the distance reported is usually about the same as a Garmin. If you want more info on that I can find some Doma maps that used the Tomtom. As Martin said though DC Rainmaker has some excellent detailed reviews. 

In the end, after about 4 years, I went and got a fancy Garmin but Gina is still using a Tomtom for now. 

I use the cheapo Garmin Forerunner 35, it records the track which is all I want for orienteering. No fancy extras.

But as the years go by GPS watches do seem to be getting more and more inaccurate. Today\'s watches show me as being much further from the control than I\'m certain I was, running a lot slower than I was ten years ago. This has got to be due to a deterioration in the technology in the watches.

The bigger the watch, the faster you go...simples    

Thank you all for the great advice. I went for a Forerunner 45S in the end. I was all set to get a Suunto Spartan one but it wasn\'t available. Hopefully my new one won\'t have the same problems as formline\'s ;-).
Niamh