XM question for Garmin 396/496 owers

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:EFFsk.258766$TT4.124426@attbi_s22...
Note to newbies: Honeck dogged Garmin until he realized the 496 beat the
crap out of anything else that would tell him where the hairy stuff was,
then he had to buy one.

Wow -- is that even English?

I don't know who you are, "F-Guy", but I calls 'em as I see 'em. I've
owned and flown behind half a dozen GPS's, from Magellans to Lowrances,
from AvMaps to Garmins -- and I'm here to tell you that the 496 is an
incredibly over-priced piece of crap, with ONE major, unequivocally
outstanding feature -- seamless, built-in XM satellite weather.

Were it not for XM capability, the 496 would be an almost laughably bad
GPS. It would also no longer be made, as no one would have bought it.
Sadly, because there is no other logical alternative, I won't fly without
it on board -- but the moment AvMap or Lowrance matches Garmin's XM
capability, the 496 will be on Ebay.

Whoever he is, he described you pretty accurately. Garmin has a superior
GPS you any of the others you mentioned, and yes I've used or owned all the
ones you mentioned and numerous panel mounts like the Kings and Apollos.
That's why Garmin outsells all the rest put together even before the 396 was
introduced and exponentially so afterward. If any of the rest were worth
having, they would have had a XM interface years ago. So you are certainly
entitled to your opinion, but it's clearly in the minority.