(Paul Tomblin) wrote:
I find the 195's screen very easy to read - I have no objections to it at
all. So I figure the 196's screen should be the same. But I have
questions about the readability of the 296 and 396 colour screens - are
they as good in bright sunlight? Can their backlights be dimmed right
down when flying at night?

I have a 296, and a friend has a 396. I'd heard the concern about seeing
a color screen in the daylight before I bought it. It's NO problem
whatsoever to see the screen/features in the sunlight (I'm in AZ!). You
can adjust the brightness to your liking on both units, and both change
illumination on their own at sunset/sunrise. There are many mounts
available in addition to the ones it comes with.

Finally, if I were to NOT get the XM weather subscription right away, is
there any point to the 396 over the 296, or is the XM the only real
difference between them?

I don't know what *all* the differences are, but weather is the major
one, and that's a great feature if you live in areas where you deal with
weather often or if you do lots of long x-cs. Of the times I've been in
the right seat with my friend using his 396, aside from the weather, I
haven't seen him do anything else with the 396 that the 296 doesn't do.

I absolutely love my 296. The manual is not very helpful, but once you
figure out how various features work, it's great. I had zero prior GPS
experience, and I love how I can program in waypoints that aren't
already in the database, program the route the night before the flight
and save it and/or edit it for next time. On most screens, you can pick
and choose what data YOU want it to display.