GRT XM weather verses Garmin 496

[spmerrell]

How does the GRT XM weather match up to the Garmin 496?

[Kahuna]

Not even close.
GRT is only capable of presenting select portions of the wx data on the screen for you.
GRT Radar is decent, course the resolution is not good.

GRT winds is decent, but does not give you any additional features of the wind like best altitude based on current course and so forth.

Metars and Tafs work, but do not give you any enroute choices, only destination . You REALLY have to work to put in a metar that is not at a nearby airport.

Goo gobs of data are available to you in a well thought out format on the 496. Not much at all on the GRT. Clearly Garmin performed user studies and did a fine job of interactive presentation.

Going here http://grtavionics.com/XM%20Weather.htm you can see all the TBD's. Its a long list of TBD items.
Good news is the cost of the XM addition to the GRT IF you already own one is ~$1500. I would say its borderline worth it. I have it in mine and I am constantly frustrated with the lack of features and the usability of it. One flight with the 496 and the difference is staggering.

My 2 cents. I use the GRT XM wx and have for ~300 hours. What features they have do work. Some are difficult to use. None are broke. But when you take a high level look at all the 496 features and the GRT in the link above, its clear whats missing. An hour behind each will demonstrate huge usability differences.

Best,

[N395V]

I can't comment on the GRT as I have never flown one but in general the othe products I have used invariably do not display all of the weather products available in the aviator package and none are as intuitive, user friendly or useful as the 396/496 relative to display, resolution, and ease of getting to the info you want. The closest I have found to the 496 is the flight cheetah/truemap.

[dav1111]

If you don't have a GRT Display in your airplane and don't plan on putting one in, by all means get the 496 and the docking map. You will love it.

I have a three screen GRT Display and with adding the single weather module for $1500.00 I get WX weather displayed on all three screens.

[spmerrell]

Thanks for all the input. Looks like I am going to go with the 496. 1st 20 hours completed on F1 Evo Rocket.