Afternoon all, I was wondering who out there uses a portable GPS? I am currently in the market for one and am trying to decide between the Garmin 296 or the Lowrance 2000c. If anyone has experience in either of these, or has a diffrent one that they like could you post and tell me about them? Thank you.

 

Why spend $2k on a portable GPS? Use that money on flight time or rent a nicer airplane with a better avionics stack.

 

My uncle has an unused C152

 

I use a PDA and the Anywhere Map by Control Vision. It is a moving map and is portable. The software also provides electronic checklists and an electronic flight log. I highly suggest you take a look as I love mine. You can also downlink weather and link it to a remote mounted gyro to provide backup to the vacuum pump. Very user friendly and you also have a PDA to use when not flying.

http://www.controlvision.com/

 

Wow calcapt I haven't seen this one yet. Very nice price. How reliable is it with the bluetooth GPS and all? This seems like a really nice gps here for the price... Thank you

 

Fly it low and slow without the GPS. You'll be amazed at how much fun you'll have when you have nothing else to do when flying but fly.

In all seriousness, the Garmins are well known, and user friendly. I haven't had any in-flight experience with the Lorance but they seem to have more capability for the money.

 

I am also in the market and have decided on the anywheremap. I have been able to go to the marv golden store and actually look at the 296,396,496 and avmap 600c, 2000c and the avmap ekp-iv and here is what I think.

if you want to do weather rule out the avmap and the lowrance models because they do not have that ability. If you care about screen size the avmap is the same price as the 296 and a little more than the 2000c but the screen size is great. If you care about "clunkiness" the avmap is pretty thick and slightly awkward and the garmins are like small little bricks, the avmap is real nice, as thick as a pda and measures around 7"x4"

The garmin is fully integrated with its own antenna (has external if you need it) and can run on its own battery which is nice, no wires hanging all over the cockpit. The 2000c you need to plug in an antenna and deal with the cord. the avmap needs both power, and an external antenna so two cords to deal with.

Picture. The garmin looks incredible, and is by far the best picture. The avmap looks great also and is right up there with the garmin. The 2000c has great color and is very bright, although the "graphics" are more atariesque looking and not that appealing to the eye when compared side by side with the garmin.

as far as functions (not counting xm weather) they are all completely on par with eachother and neither one really has a feature that the other does not.

my personal choice was in this order.

1. avmap ekp- I liked the screen size and ease of use
2. garmin 296- great display, no wires everywhere
3. lowrance 2000c- large display, graphical presentation not great

but the overall choice I went with is the anywheremap. The reason I chose the anywhere map is the yearly cost is the lowest as far as updates go, in the event of a problem with the pda, you can replace that and not the whole unit, and the same goes with the gps antenna and the software, it is never completely obsolete. It also is feature packed with the same and a few more features than the others, I like the "taxi express" feauture which shows your position overlayed on an airport diagram with taxi and runway markings for ease of taxiing in an unfamiliar airport. It also has "pocket plates" which is a nice feauture with gives you part 91 approved approach plates which also overlays your airplane on the chart and tracks your progess.

ok that is enough about all of that, just my 2 cents