Rhett,

I thought that I would take you up on correcting some gaps and errors.
However, please take the tone to be constructive rather than critical.
Thanks for taking the time to post the review. I should also add that I
have played with the 196, but do not own one.

The manual is typical of that from the 295, with ok description of the
aviation features,
and basically nothing about the automotive and marine features. Yes I
know that there are
physically pages in the manual covering these features, but how much
information is really
there? There are lots of questions I still have, after reading the thing
cover-to-cover.
Like the 295 I'm sure I'll have to figure stuff out by trail and error.

I have a free downloadable book at www.cockpitgps.com which might be of some
use. I do not have any 296 specific examples, but the book is about GPS in
general rather than specific receivers. Even so, I do have some 196
examples. There is a voluntary payment link, but the book can be downloaded
for free. At least sign my guestbook or drop me a not from the feedback
link if you find it useful.

Like the 196? Then you'll like the 296. Except this has color to help
unclutter things
(not that the 196 was bad), and has terrain avoidance. Sorry if that
doesn't sound like
much information, but I in a way I think this says a lot!

I would agree with that summary.


I'm still a little foggy about the terrain page. There is a dedicated
terrain page, which I
understand, but the manual talks about a pop-up page that will come up on
all other pages
(eg the panel or map) when in danger. But the manual doesn't explain how
this happens, or
what setup parameters there are to make it happen. I haven't paid
attention at low enough
altitudes to see if it happens or not. Still, I'm sure that this could be
a really great
aid for situational awareness, especially when some controller is pushing
you around in
areas and altitudes you're not comfortable with.


Go to page 69 of the user manual and it points out how to get to the terrain
setup page. It appears that you can select various paramaters for warnings.
Now for the Demo. Page 9 explains how to set up the simulator mode works.
Essentially, go to the satellite page, press MENU, and select start
simulator. If you go to the HSI page, you can override the automatic
simulator navigation. Up and down on the cursor pad controls speed and left
and right allows you to steer manually. In the simulator mode, the zoom
keys will change the altitude. Using the simulator mode, you can fly into
terrain and see the warnings in action.

I used this feature to set up the CALI crash and was very impressed with the
terrain feature.

If you go to the main map, anywhere you put the cursor will show you not
only the lat/long, but also the terrain height.


One missing detail from the new terrain information is information about
glide capability in
an engine-out situation. There are some software-only GPS solutions that
have a "cones of
safety" feature, graphically showing you which airports are within safe
gliding distance at
any given time. This is a great feature, although I've only played with
it a little. While
the Garmin has all of the information inside of it to make such a rough
calculation, it is
not provided. And yes, I know that you should be able to make this type
of calculation
yourself, but in the heat of the moment during an true engine-out in a
single, the more
information you can have at your fingertips the better!

I think that there is some neat future potential in what you describe and I
know that some of the Pocket PC programs offer this. I think that the
development of this feature holds much promise, especially with some of the
glass cockpit aircraft that have airspeed information and could back out
wind information. Anyway, back to the 296 (also the III Pilot, 196, and
295)-- the 296 has VNAV that allows you to set a height above a waypoint.
Let's say that you have the default set to 0 ft. above the waypoint. You
may actually might want to set a different altitude, but that is a different
discussion. If you execute a GOTO an emergency airport, the VNAV will
indicate vertical speed and/or glide slope required to make it to the
airport. Assuming a constant groundspeed, if VS to TARGET sinkrate is
increasing then you are floating above a straight line to the waypoint and
should be able to make the airport. If it is increasing you are sinking
below -- you will not make it. You can also use GLIDE RATIO to TARGET,
except that an increasing GR to TARGET means you are sinking and will not
make the target.

This is not the same as having the circles representing the glide cones that
you are talking about, but it still might be of use. For situational
awareness, calculate how many miles your airplane will glide per 1,000 ft.
in still air. With that bit of knowledge, you can look at the map display
and at least have a rough idea of what is reachable.

[I'll apologize in advance about any errors in this section. The manual
isn't all that
clear about some things, and maybe I'm a little ignorant about what to
expect from turn-by-
turn routing with what I have, so maybe my complaints are just B.S.]

The big improvement over the 295 for automotive use is the turn-by-turn
routing. Although
it was basically the same package as the StreetPilot Color, in typical
Garmin fashion they
chose to "differentiate the products" by hobbling the 295 so it would only
let you look up
addresses, which you could only "go to" directly, as the crow flies.

I am not so sure this is true. If I remember correctly, without bothering
to verify through research, the original Street Pilot Colormap did not offer
turn by turn routing. The later Street Pilot III introduced turn by turn
routing.

But with the basic unit these directions will be text only, since the unit
DOES NOT HAVE
VOICE PROMPTS without the addition of optional equipment. Expect the same
Garmin beep
you've been hearing. The manual doesn't explain what these voice prompts
say, and when
you'll hear them, other than to tell you how to change the language. So I
have no idea
whether they work at all, or in what modes, with the optional car speaker.

One big problem I've had with the routing so far is the routing detail.
I'd love to hear
what other owners have to say about this, because maybe I'm just stupid
and doing something
wrong. Don't know. I'm using an older version of MapSource MetroGuide US
(can't find the
box or instructions for the past week, so I don't know the version
off-hand) that I bought
with my 295, so I've never had a chance to play with the turn-by-turn
routing. The streets
themselves are fairly accurate in location detail. On the Mapsource PC
software, routing
works great, with nice tracks swooping around clover-leafs - generally the
route follows the
road. Not so on the 296. The routes the unit comes up with generally go
from turn to turn
in mostly straight lines, mostly missing the (detailed Mapsource data)
road entirely when
it's winding. I'm not sure if this is intentional, or just my screw-up,
but it makes using
it for driving difficult, because the road you should be on is not
highlighted (like I'm
used to from PC programs), but instead there's a line offroad somewhere
telling you the
general direction you want to go. Since details like offramps are missed
in this crude
routing, important turning points can be missed (which has already been
really annoying when
traveling in unfamiliar territory).

Anyway, I'm hoping that this is a screw-up on my part or Garmin's, since
this really limits
the functionality of the unit for automotive use. I'm certainly hoping
this isn't another
attempt by Garmin for product differentiation. I know that there are
newer versions of
MapSource than I own, but I will not buy something newer unless I know it
would solve this
problem.

With other screens, the automotive functions are pretty much bare-bones.
The "3-D" Highway
Page, which has been around on the Garmin's forever, could have been
really useful. But it
only contains the jagged route I described above, with no cross-streets or
other helpful
information, as is available on some auto-only GPSs. With this much CPU
power, this is a
real shame. Garmin even hides this screen away now - you have to manually
activate it from
a setup menu.


The basemap only contains the level of road detail that you would get in a
state road map. Out of the box, you can route from city to city, but will
not be able to look up addresses. To get the street routing that you are
looking for, you need to load more detailed maps. Not only must you upload
detailed maps, but the maps must support auto routing on the GPS. The
product that Garmin sells for the 296 is CitySelect.

MetroGuide supports route calculation on the computer, but generally does
not support routing on the GPS. However, there was one version of
MetroGuide that will support autorouting on the GPS receivers that support
autorouting. It is the previous version which I beleive was version 3.
When you select a map area to upload, look at the list of maps. If you have
the MetroGuide version that supports autorouting, you should see a check box
option to "include route calculation data." On the left side of the
MapSource screen there is the box with tabs for waypoints, routes, and the
list of maps that you have selected to load into the GPS. The check box is
at the bottom of the list of maps if you have version 3 of MetroGuide.

You can probably find an inexpensive (but legit) copy of MetroGuide 3, but
the CitySelect maps have newer data.

The couple of times that I have actually used autorouting for real on the
196 or GPS V as opposed to going somewhere where I knew how to get to, it
was impressive. There are several options such as avoiding U-turns, toll
roads, highways, etc. The default values are good, but make sure that you
have the desired values checked or you will get some strange routings.

It is purely speculative on my part, but I am wondering if Garmin will
introduce XM weather capability to the 296. Go he
http://www.garmin.com/marinenetworking/ and use your imagination. Once
again, this is nothing more than speculation on my part.

Hope this info helps,


John Bell
www.cockitgps.com