299 is a good price, is that new in a box or a demo or something? All the regular dealers I've found are selling the Lowrance 500's for $399. I got a similar deal a few years ago from Avionics West for a Garmin 195, but it was definitely a demo unit, and had an expired database. Lowrance charges $35 for a single database update, so that would not be a deal breaker in this case. You might want to confirm that the unit is covered by a full warranty though.
Other than price, you may wish you'd waited a few more weeks...We're currently doing a full scale and very detailed comparison between the Lowrance 500 and the Garmin 96 for the club newsletter, the results to be published in the May/June edition, with even more details in the Member's hangar.
We actually purchased one of each, and will be selling them as used demos after the comparison is done. (I suppose which ever one is our least favorite will be more steeply discounted)
In any case, we intend to settle the question whether or not the Garmin is worth an extra $70. (street price)
For those wanting a little more upscale GPS, we'll be doing the same kind of comparison between the Garmin 196, Garmin 96C, Lowrance 1000 and AVMap GeoPilot next. That comparison will take a little more time and money, and will likely be published in September/October.
Our plan is to set up some kind of hands on demo of all six of the above mentioned GPS's at Clinton this year, so you can try them out in person and offer your own opinions about the strengths and weaknesses of the various designs. By July we should have quite a bit of hands on experience with each of the six models and we may even host some kind of forum or round table to discuss the relative merits of each of these models at Clinton.
The price range of this group is $400-$800, a good fit for a large percentage of budget conscious 150-152 pilots. Those who want bigger screens, color, terrain, or live Nexrad weather will have to spend more, and we'll cover those options in early 2006. If the GPS demos and tech forum are popular at Clinton we'll repeat them at future fly-ins adding more experience and knowledge as we go.
Last edited by Royson; 05/11/05 03:46 PM.
