Garmin 296 worth the money?

Interestingly, the source where I first heard of this [1] is no longer
claiming XM compatibility. It used to say that both TAWS-like capability
and XM weather would be supported via a free firmware upgrade some time
after shipping . Now they only mention the terrain stuff.

I'm in a 10-pilot club, so $50/mo. isn't a deal breaker. As far as the "XM
gear" goes, the original claim was that it would all be built in to the
airmap. Who knows now...

[1] http://www.avshop.com/catalog/produc...productid=6054

"Darrel Toepfer" wrote in message
...
Jeremy Lew wrote:
The question really is, is the 296 worth $1700 minus the value of your
current GPS.
I know my 196 is worth $700+ to tropicaero as a trade up, "value add"
must
only be $1000,
not $1700. Despite the proprietary battery, the unit recharges itself
while
plugged in to the plane's DC power (and continues to function too),
which I
think increases its relative value if you have a power socket available.

What I really want to know is whether they are going to add on XM
satellite
weather capability, like Lowrance is doing with their upcoming model.
This
would make it a no brainer for me.

Do you have a URL about this? There is no mention of it on the website
for the Airmap 2000...

Although you'd need to fly quite a bit to justify the $50 a month
subscription for that, plus the cost of the required XM gear...

http://www.xmradio.com/weather/service_and_pricing.html