I have flown with both. My (DB) glider came with LX nav and I took it out and after 2 seasons put in a clearnav II with vario.

The LX is a much more expensive computer. The hardware, screen resolution, etc. is fancier. It's very impressive. As others have commented, it's infinitely customizable. And you have to infinitely customize it.

Why did I rip it out and sell at considerable loss? I found myself always confused. Yes, if one spends a few nights rereading and practicing, one can get the hang of the thing each spring. But I'm lazy and I found myself constantly forgetting how to do basic stuff. The CN is instantly self explanatory.

I found two big problems with the LX. The guidance for finishing a turn area task is very complex. Running off the end of a mountain at Minden nationals, I needed to know in the next 30 seconds whether to make the next transition or turn for home. I spent 30 seconds totally heads down ( ) on this task trying to guess when I'd get home. When the decision needed to be made I went. I ended up something like 15 minutes early, dooming my speed for the day. The clearnav ellipse and time to finish display just shows up automatically and does an amazingly good job.

I also hated the speed to fly vario. The sensitivity d noise / d lift is at least 5 times greater in speed mode than in vario mode, so it's always screaming up or down. You enter lift, it screams up, you turn... it switches to climb mode and you're only going 2 knots. I am pretty religious -- I want a speed to fly audio in cruise mode, which I use to listen to the air as I fly relatively constant speed. A netto leads to flying too slow, and a TE vario is always screaming down. After many emails to LX I couldn't get them to fix it (i.e. to see it my way). The STF audio is calibrated to horizontal knots, i.e. "you're flying 10 knots too slow" and thus has a different scale than the other audios. The STF audio should be vertical knots "the air is going up 2 knots faster than it should be for the speed you are currently flying." The CNV does that.

The CN thermal centerer is an unexpected bonus. It really works. I can usually do better mentally if I'm paying attention. But if I get distracted for a bit and lose the thermal, going the way it tells me to go works more often than not.

I prefer the amoeba to the colored airports. Among other things it quickly lets you know if you can make it over a pass, like in to truckee over lake tahoe. but this isn't that big a deal.

I buy instruments NOT to look at them or fuss with them. Turn the CN on, it shows what you want quickly, and look back outside with no fussing through screens

I call it 9000 numbers you don't need. If you want all those numbers, flight statistics, L/D to this and that, you want the 9000

Both excellent instruments however. Really just a question of matching the instrument with your philosophy.

John Cochrane