I have a garmin 295 right now (untill I upgrade my panel), my old plane I sold a
few months ago I had put a garmin 430 in it. I have friends who have garmin
196's and they like it alot. I prefer the 295 because its color.

But generally I think handhelds are mostly the same, only exception would be
any unique features you may want, like I would prefer a gps to show the screen
like a sectional, where it shows terrain hieght and such for avoiding mountains
at night. The 295, you can also purchase additional data bases for it for use in
a car and so on. But it does every thing from flight planning to showing you how
much fuel you will need for a leg.

Jay Honeck wrote:

I've been leaning towards a Garmin 196 to replace our ailing Lowrance Airmap
300. However, now that Garmin has announced they are no longer going to
support the Garmin 90, it appears that they are no better at support than
Lowrance -- who recently "orphaned" my Airmap from all technical support.
(This occurred right before it started acting flaky, naturally.)

So, I'm now thinking about one of these Compaq Ipaq/GPS combinations. One
of our guests at the inn gave me a 15 minute "tour" of his, and I was fairly
impressed with:

- The color screen.
- The strength of the software.
- The fact that it just doesn't sit in the plane, but is actually useful
beyond flying.

Apparent downsides we

- The screen didn't look bright enough in direct sunlight
- The "pen" interface seemed like a tough thing to handle, especially in
turbulence.
- The clutter of wires in the cockpit sounds like a mess.

What says the group? Anyone out there care to comment on the various
strengths and weaknesses? I've only got about ten days left to make up my
mind!
--
Jay Honeck
Iowa City, IA
Pathfinder N56993
www.AlexisParkInn.com
"Your Aviation Destination"