Thomas Borchert wrote
Well, a few questions to narrow the field:

I would add a few:

Will you fly IFR? Will you have an IFR GPS when you do? With moving
map?

Many people tend to look only at the Garmin line of products. However,
Lowrance has a very attractive range, too, and both Jay Honeck and
Aviation Consumer like the AvMap EKP.

Frankly, I have been very underwhelmed with the Lowrance products.
They're well-built and they work fine, but the user interface feels
like it was designed by an engineer with the help of a low time pilot.
I find it counter-intuitive; an airline pilot friend of mine bought
one of the high end models (a 1000, I think, which, it terms of
price/performance blows away the Garmin) and found it unusable - he
bought a Garmin and is selling the Lowrance on Ebay.

My suggestion is try before you buy - and by try I mean make a flight
with one. You may discover that you like the Lowrance user interface
just fine since you're not already used to something different; then
again you may not.

Another friend of mine has a PDA-based system; I find it essentially
unusable since it requires the use of the stylus. On the other hand,
I don't normally use a PDA at all. If you use your PDA all the time,
you may find it to be the most convenient system.

A lot of this will depend on how you use the GPS - for VFR-only use,
you can get by with something that will just **** you off when you get
a reroute IFR. All I'm saying is, don't overlook the user interface.
At this point, most GPS units have more functionality than the average
pilot really needs. What really differentiates them is the user
interface.

Michael