"Blueskies" wrote in message
...
Thinking about getting a used 196 - any pireps?

I've owned a Garmin 196 for all of about 2 months.
It does more than I expected it would do and the grayscale
screen works fine in bright sun or with the adjustable backlight
at night.

Latest firmware version is 4.10 unless they updated it recently.
The database is updated about once a month which is more often
than any of the paper I generally have to carry.

The only bad thing I can say about the unit is that it will take you
quite a while to explore all of the features, menus and screens.
Buy an extra set of batteries and expect to spend at least a couple
evenings on the ground learning how to use it. I still don't use
mine to even half of it's potential.