480 vs 430/G1000

As a CFI I have a good amount of experience with the G1000 and 430
systems so I thought I ought to sit down with the 480 and try it out.
Partly because I may buy one, but partly because there is a good chance
as a Mooney CFI I will run into a student with such a unit. I guess I
was pretty shocked at the differences. This certainly is not an
evolution between the units. In fact, the G1000's nav system seems to
be taken right out of the 430 but the 480 is entirely different. My
first impressions were...

1) I *REALLY* like the airways. I've written to Garmin on many
occasions complaining about the lack of airways in their units for
those of us that thread the mountains out west.

2) Holding. The holding abilities of the 480 make the 430/G1000 look
like a toy! Its awesome. I really like the "arbitrary hold" where you
can make a hold out of any fix, just like in a real FMS. You program
the direction of the hold, then length (in nm or min) and the course
and it sets it up. Also, it will drive you around the hold and even
intercept an element of the hold (you don't have to first cross the
holding fix). The 430/G1000 won't do any of that. When you hit a hold
in the G1000/430 the system just suspends and drives off into nowhere
(expecting that you will switch the autopilot to heading mode,
althought the Cessna factory CFIs told us with the G1000/KAP140 system
they just muscle around the hold).

3) I think there will be a larger ramp up time for students with the
480. In the 430 and G1000 I can sit down with a student behind the unit
and describe for them how to navigate the pages, use the cursor, etc in
about 10-20 minutes. The 480 relies heavily on softkeys. That
introduces another layer of complexity. Now the first question is going
to be "how do I get the button to come up". Even setting nav/com
requires the use of softkeys.

4) For a pilot proficient in the 430, I don't think it will take more
than a couple of hours to come up to IFR proficiency in the 480. The
basic functionality is the same and the approach to problems is the
same. However, for the non-GPS-IFR pilot, it will probably take a
longer to learn.

5) All in all, these units are highly intuitive compared to what we
used to have. I always got a bit of anxiety when a student would call
me to fly with him and tell me he had some sort of odd King IFR GPS.
You almost couldn't fly those units w/o the manual. The Apollos were
not much better.

6) I wonder what Garmin's future direction will be. They obviously
decided to base the new G1000 on the 430. Will they use the 480 code
moving forward, will they merge the code, etc???

I understand the 480 came for UPS, I wonder if they bought it because
they wanted the technology or because they didn't want the competition.

-Robert