I've always used ':1' for the beginning and ':$' for the end. To me, the benefit of this is that I always use the same mechanism to go to a particular line of a file. (I often do, say, ':45' if an error is reported at line 45.)

For moving up and down large distances, I also prefer ctrl+u for up and ctrl+d for down. There is a minor difference: ctrl+f will put the last line at the top of the screen, filling the rest with the tilde-abyss. That always bothers me.