I became a fan after I got used to nice color schemes, buffers/tabs, horizontal/vertical splitting, file browsing with NERDTree and highlighting changes with GITGutter.

You ask for tips? Add VIM commands you use regularly (like paste mode toggle for example) to a keyboard shortcut (like leader key + p) in your .vimrc settings file. It increases working speed.
Also add some plugins, they are fun and add useful functions from other editors like Sublime (ctrl-p, vim-multiple-cursors).