The Garmin 496...a teenager's review

On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:43:26 -0700, NW_Pilot wrote:

Ahhh!!!! Whatever!!! The modern displays draw a fraction of the power they
did just 3 years ago and the resolution is 2 to 3 time better.

Are you attempting to disagree with me? I didn't write about "displays"
but "refresh rates". These are orthogonal issues.

Garmin is
using older cheaper displays.

Proof?

If they spent an extra $50-$100 per unit on better displays of the same
size power drain would be less and resolution would be better. Don't get
me started on cpu speed and flash storage very, very, minimal costs in
these units. As for the XM weather it is just a software program on the
unit and the data is available.

Ah, you sound like the typical IT customer: "it's just software; get
coding. Be done next week."

I wonder why it's so easy to believe that software is so easy to build.
Its massless or invisible nature?

http://www.seattleavionics.com has XM weather requires a receiver but it
works.

http://www.xmradio.com/weather/hardw...lutions_av.xmc

Yet Garmin stands alone. Why?

In fact, though, this isn't quite true. I myself am *still* stuck at
"Garmin 496 vs. Cheetah 190". So there *is* competition.

Anyone have any insights on the 190, esp. how it compares to the 496? On
balance, the Cheetah appears the better product. But I wonder how stable
it is, running as I expect it is on some Microsoft platform. In theory,
at least, the dedicated nature of the Garmin should yield a more
trustworthy platform.

My 430s have never crashed, for example (excluding one hardware issue).

- Andrew