I'm an owner of Garmin Edge Explore. Got one for myself end of last year.
I'm completely satisfied with its navigational capabilities and in general it does everything I've expected it to do.
It is basically an Edge 1030 with a slightly smaller screen and artificially introduced software limitations like removed power meters support. Or temperature sensor - it does have one in its hardware and it was working perfectly until software update 4.10 in which Garmin removed support for it because official device specifications say that Explore doesn't have a temperature sensor. Yeah, they do need to sell 1030...
Device works pretty fast, touch screen is fast and responsive. Additional apps can be installed from Connect IQ store (I really like routeCourse app which allows to upload routes to Garmin wirelessly from any web browser - e.g. right from phone -
https://apps.garmin.com/en-US/apps/b...3-474e97f376ac). So far never ran out of battery with it: usually running with 60-70% screen brightness without battery saver enabled and even after long rides of about 7 hours it still has about 25% charge left.
From the list of features mentioned Explore
doesn't have elevation grade %, only elevation in absolute measures (feet or meters) like current elevation, total ascent, ascent remaining etc. It also doesn't have a concept of bike profiles as far as I can tell - I don't see anything about profiles in it.