New Garmin 396

In article 1120746983.96c8ea236aee82fdb45a0f6f90deb804@teran ews,
"Richard Kaplan" wrote:
forums to give me pause
about whether I want to mess with such things while flying. Here, the
Garmin approach wins, and solidly.

That is absolutely true... not to mention no dealing with power cables,
bluetooth, configuring windows, etc. etc.


No dealing with power cables? Do these things run on fuel cells?

You will still have at least two cables running from the GPS: one for
power and one for the antenna. That's a greater number of cables than
are presently running to my PDA, using Bluetooth to the XM receiver and
GPS with a competing software product. As someone else pointed out, you
will have a $2500 paperweight when the a new version with new
capabilities is released, if you want those new capabilities. And, as
far as I know, you can't take the 396 out of your airplane, pop it into
your back pocket, and jump on the WiFi network when you get to the
airport/hotel/restaurant, etc. I found the WiFi capability of even a
PDA to be very helpful for simple things like checking weather, filing
flight plans, etc. on a recent trip. Didn't have to lug the laptop
around.

That all being said, Garmin produces a very good, polished navigation
system that is hard to beat--in my opinion, none of the PDA-based
software products does navigation as cleanly. I wouldn't be surprised
if Garmin has implemented all of the XM weather features on the 395, but
I haven't seen confirmation. Garmin's development resources are much
greater than most of the PDA-based competitors.

As far as interfacing for TIS display, I wonder for how much longer this
will be a useful feature? Has anyone been able to confirm the reported
plans to start turning down TIS sites? I'm not sure that I'd invest in
a GTX330 at this point with TIS on its way out, but if you have one
already, it's certainly a selling point.



JKG