GPS Choices

Sully wrote:
I was wondering if I could get some input from others on a few GPS's?
I have been looking at the Garmin 196 & Street Pilot III as well as
the Lowrance 500 & 1000.

The major advantage that I see with the 196 is that you can use it for
turn by turn directions in a vehicle. I have been looking at getting
a GPS for the vehicle that would do just that. From what I can tell
the price between the 196 and most others are only a couple 100 (for
vehicle).

I think I paid $400 for the "auto kit" for the 196. I'd say it's marginal
utility for that price. I like it as an aviation GPS, and it's OK in the car,
too, but not worth the extra $400 I paid for the car kit.

The auto database is quite out of date, and several roads I use regularly are
not in the database. I just got an offer to purchase an updated database, so
maybe that will take care of that issue. The database doesn't carry a
"current-as-of" date. The road datebase upgrades are fairly expensive.

The auto-routing in auto (i.e.not aviation) mode has a tendency to send me down
a certain dirt road nearby. There seems to be no way to configure "ignore
unpaved roads".

Not sure whether you can cobble together your own "car kit" for a lot less than
$400. IIRC the kit consists of a sort-of bean-bag mount that sits on car's
dashboard, a 64M flash card, and the database CD. You might find another way of
mounting, find the flash somewhere else cheaper, and buy the database
separately. As I said, not sure whether this is feasible.


The main draw back to buying either of the ones I have listed so far
is that it looks like the only way I can get them is to buy online
which also means I don't get to play with it first to see exactly what
features I like or don't like. I have found places that carry Garmin
and Lowrance in the area but none carry any of the aviation models.

Thanks for the help.