[paol]

At the very minimum, having the local file status and recent history visible in a window at all times (i.e. a permanent 'git status', 'git log' and 'git diff' view) makes a GUI worthwhile. I can't even imagine working without that.

Another thing a GUI can be superior is operating on arbitrary subsets of files. E.g. imagine you have 100 new files and want to 'git add' an arbitrary subset of them; doing this in a GUI is far faster than the command line. (This is equivalent to shell vs. file manager - some operations are done more efficiently in the command line, some in a GUI.)

Then there's all sorts of niceties that a GUI can provide to speed up your work. E.g. git is very anal about what can be done if your local tree isn't clean, requiring often a stash-operation-unstash workflow. Smartgit (my weapon of choice, highly recommended) does it for me when required. More niceties I appreciate: reordering commits with a simple drag-and-drop; a diff/merge view to use during conflicts, or just to add a subset of file changes instead of whole files; jumping between repos with a single click. I'm probably forgetting a few.

TL;DR You can pry Smartgit from my cold dead hands.