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Its my fault Royson ... I recently bought a 296 and I knew in my heart that if I did, they would introduce some new technology that would make me sorry that I took the plunge.

I love the 296, and I'm really not afraid of a new announcement by garmin, but I'm not at all surprised!

Terry

Man, what can be done to improve on the 396? Direct TV?

I think if a 496 is in the works (and I suspect you are 100% right) it'll be overkill for me. The 396 has features that I probably not use, unless XM allows poor folks like me to purchase a 30 day weather-use at a time. I could go for this, but not an entire 1 year subscription.

I think my money order and old 196 will be boxed up and sent to Dave at JA Air Center tomorrow... I'm taking the plunge.

This may drop prices for all earlier models.

I'm holding off for now

If I were to hold off for now, my 196 instead of being worth $500 on a trade-in will be worth $400, so it is a wash for me.

I moved from the 196 to the 296 a couple of months ago. Really worth the price of admission. It is eaisly more than twice as nice as the 196 in just about every way.. and the 196 is a fine gps. My understanding is the only difference between the 296 and 396 is the weather / music option. If I could order the weather by the week or even month I might be interested but most times if I need to see the weather real time to make the flight, I think I'll stay home.

harry

I think the only difference between the 296 and 396 is the inclusion of pay as you go XM service (programming & weather). The nice part is the weather overlay on your GPS map enroute and I think that is about it.

I use the 296 and think it is much more than the typical 150/152 pilot will ever need.

It seems to me that any 496 could only include some form of XM traffic collision avoidance. It would probably need to be a feed from a satellite as opposed to nearby transponder recognition and interpretation, which would require precise placement and be free from any interference.

There must be a point where there is so much visual information on your GPS screen that it becomes confusing and distracting. Garmin is clever and will probably announce a winner, but we will see.

Paul... I think you must have a crystal ball. This is brilliant! And if Garmin missed it on this re-design, they need to pay you a royalty for the next mod...

Still, the 396 is overkill for me, and I know the 496 is way too far out of my league, but the weather feature, if it is available on a 30 purchase, sounds too good to pass up, so I sent off my mulah today for a new one.

Also, I called XM Radio today and the phone rep told me when my 396 gets here, I can transfer the remainder of my XM subscription from my fairly new Silverado pickup to my Garmin... Man, ain't technology great?

If I was Garmin, I'd make the 496 exactly like the 396, but with about a 30% larger screen.

Those of you who have read my GPS reviews know that I love the 196, 296 & 396, all excellent units.

But they all share one weakness, to my aging eyes, the screens are too small and crowded. I probably wouldn't have minded so much except that I've now flown with the Lowrance 1000/2000, the EKP AVMap, and the Bendix King Skymap III, all of which have larger,less crowded screens than Garmin.

Though I like the Garmin's operating system best, I really like the bigger screens, far less squinting, and less zooming in and out to get details.

A 496 with a bigger screen would be the cat's meow.

That's my prediction, you heard it here first.

(Actually I first predicted this in the newsletter months ago.)

So Roy, if you xfr the XM subscription from the truck to the 396...can you no longer listen to it in the truck? Or am I missing something?

Regarding XM entertainment subscriptions, the first one is $12.95 a month and each additional receiver is $5.95 a month under their "family plan". (keep in mind that this is for the music part, weather is a completely separate subscription)

In the case of a portable XM radio, you can simply transfer the receiver from the car to the house, to the hangar etc, as long as each location has an XM antenna, so that saves the cost of an extra subscription. I do this, though it meant buying several receiver dock/antenna packages, no small cost, about $60 each, nearly as much as a receiver, but it avoids extra monthly subscriptions.

The 396 is different than a typical XM entertainment receiver, it uses a special dedicated antenna that includes the XM receiver in the antenna. (There are some home stereo receivers that can use XM with a similar receiver/antenna.)

Unfortunately this means it is more hassle to use the 396 as a portable unit, you would need to take the antenna pod with you, and assuming you might want to use the GPS function in a car, that would be two antenna pods.

It's my view that it makes more sense not to use the 396 as an entertainment receiver, for a several reasons. First, there's the portability factors I describe above. Second, I'm not sure I want to tote a $2,200 aviation GPS around with me in my car and back and forth to my house, just so I can listen to XM radio without paying an additional $6 a month. Third, it seems to me that using the entertainment menus on the 396 is a distraction, and inconvenient compared to using just a plain old vanilla XM receiver.

Why clutter up your navigation screen while stepping through a menu, just so you can change the music channel? It's way easier and more intuitive to use a dedicated XM entertainment receiver, mounted to the co-pilot yoke. Lastly, if the music is coming from the 396, there's no way my teenage music surfing daughter can work the XM radio. (I isolate her headphones from mine when she's surfing.) Since the music subscription cost is the same, why not use a dedicated XM music receiver? There are a bunch of very good, very small and cheap XM radios out there, here are two of my favorites:

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4875743

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=4227930