Garmin 196 GPS - what do you guys think?

Tony,

But not terrain - see the obstacle, change heading, hit the mountain


You're telling us you would rely on a handheld, non-certified, non-WAAS
VFR-GPS with a systematic altitude error of at least a couple hundred
feet to avoid terrain?

Terrain on a (handheld) GPS looks really cool and makes it easier to
correlate the moving map picture and reality outside the window, but
IMHO you just can't use it to avoid terrain by only a few hundred feet
as necessary during scud running. For all other situations, I don't
really see what it is needed for: VFR you just look outside at the
terrain, IFR you should be high enough to not hit the terrain anyway -
and the map without terrain should give you enough situational
awareness to avoid being where you shouldn't be. That said, terrain is
nice to have and adds to SA - but not critical.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)