XM Weather, auto-routing for ground travelers, air traffic data from
TIS, etc, all qualify as 'advanced' features, not 'basic' features for
the typical VFR pilot, and might very well justify a premium price if
the buyer is willing to pay such a large amount extra for them. But
is that really worth almost three and a half times the price? ($2.4K
for the 496 vs $700 current going price for the 2000C). Certainly not
to me. My opinion is that Garmin should retail the 296 at about $800,
the 396 at maybe $1300 and the 496 at maybe $1900K and the monochrome
196 at $500. That's about what they're really worth. I don't like
either of the little 96 and 96C units. I thought the little GPS Pilot
III was a much better "entry-level" aviation GPS. They should've just
upgraded it's processor/memory/software/etc and kept the form-factor
of the "III" instead.



On Jun 28, 3:05 pm, Jonathan Goodish wrote:
In article om,

texasflyer wrote:
Garmin needs to drop their prices on much more than just a measly $400
off their top end model.

They need to quit being such greedy bastages and come out with a nice
basic, easy to use, portable aviation GPS with large color "portrait"
screen, with WAAS, terrain/obstacle data, airport data, built-in
flight log and E6B calculator features, "land mode", etc, etc, etc,
and sell it for under $800 with all the common accessories such as
cables, yoke mounts, etc, all included in the package price.

Oh wait... I've just described the Lowrance 2000C !!!!!!

Except that, oops, the Lowrance 2000c doesn't have XM weather. Deal
killer for me and many others.

There are many other advantages of the Garmin hand-helds over the
Lowrance units, not the least of which is a higher-resolution display
(though it is smaller), road auto-routing, display of traffic data (from
either TIS or XRX), etc.

JKG