Garmin or Lowrance - Page 2

aparchment · #11 05-09-2006, 06:26 PM

My experience with Lowrance left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I was pretty unimpressed with how they supported, or failed to support, my Airmap. I basically got to use it for a little over a year (I bought it new) before it became obsolete (database became too big for the unit). They offered me $100 for it if I bought another of their models. I am sure Lowrance knew that memory size would soon be an issue for the unit. Buyer beware you may say, but I view it as borderline deceitful. Then to offer to buy the unit back for a fraction of its purchase price is a great way to treat customers. How difficult could it have been to charge the customer for a memory upgrade? Maybe that would have been cost prohibitive, who knows.

Has this sort of thing happened to the Garmin 296 people?

Antony

Mitch757 · #12 05-09-2006, 07:18 PM

I'd like to chime in here as a budget limited shopper. A couple weeks ago, I found a dealer for the Lowrance 2000C who was selling them for $695 plus $12 shipping (SnF special carryover). He told me about a rebate program that allowed an additional $225 for trading in my old Airmap 300. I gave him my credit card info and received the unit 2 days later.

In the meantime, per his instructions, a call to Lowrance got me an RMA number to ship my old unit in for the credit. Within a week, the credit letter arrived and the $225 credit was issued...net cost: $470!

I use it in my RV4 on a kneeboard and it works like a charm. It also comes with a bunch of different mounts and several CD's for loading auto stuff.

The dealer I got it from is "Rollison Airplane Company", www.AirplaneGear.com, 812-384-4972....very prompt transactions.

Mitch Garner
RV-4 N10TH

wingtime · #13 05-09-2006, 09:11 PM

I have been a Garmin guy for a long time. I never even looked at Lowrance untill a buddy showed me one he was selling since he picked up the color model. I was shocked at the value you get for the $$$. You can get the 600C for HALF the price of a color Garmin.

Dgamble · #14 05-10-2006, 06:14 AM

I've been buying Garmin GPS units since the days when Beindix/King owned the market, and acted like they thought that situation would never change. Today, Garmin has taken over the role of the "take it or leave it" monolith.

I had a problem with my 295: turn it on, go to the moving map page, and the unit would shut itself off. Called Garmin support: send it in with a check for $250 and we'll fix it. Having been around computers since I bought a TRS-80 Model I back in the 70's, I figured this to be more of a software glitch than a hardware problem since it only happened with one of the pages. No way I was blindly sending then $250 for that. A little time with Google led me to a little internet backwater where I found a list of the apparently trade-secret master reboot codes for Garmin GPS units. Three finger salute and the problem was resolved.

It is inconceivable to me that Garmin has never heard of the problem I had, and equally inconceivable that the first response from the tech support team wasn't to suggest trying a reboot. I also find it somewhat less than customer friendly to not have the reboot codes available on their support web site. Al I can assume is that they make a bundle on charging $250 to press three keys. Yes, I understand that $250 is a blended flat rate, and if I had a $500 fix it would look like a bargain, but as the first step in the support process, I find their motives questionable.

The whole thing left me wondering why I would ever buy another Garmin unit.

Having shared my $.02 on the topic, I now have $249.98 left in the bank for my next Garmin support issue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aparchment

My experience with Lowrance left me with a bad taste in my mouth. I was pretty unimpressed with how they supported, or failed to support, my Airmap. I basically got to use it for a little over a year (I bought it new) before it became obsolete (database became too big for the unit). They offered me $100 for it if I bought another of their models. I am sure Lowrance knew that memory size would soon be an issue for the unit. Buyer beware you may say, but I view it as borderline deceitful. Then to offer to buy the unit back for a fraction of its purchase price is a great way to treat customers. How difficult could it have been to charge the customer for a memory upgrade? Maybe that would have been cost prohibitive, who knows.

Has this sort of thing happened to the Garmin 296 people?

Antony

mrreddick · #15 05-10-2006, 06:19 AM

All,

The 2000C can be flown in the "auto zoom" mode and if you need a closer look you can zoom in to check an airport identifier, lake name, highway name, whatever!, and within a short time delay, the Lowrance returns to the auto zoom range for your route.

I keep one of the nav maps on auto zoom and one on manual. I can navigate out of the DFW Class B using the manual map and then switch to the other when I don't need as much surface detail.

I've been a Lowrance user since 1998 and have never had a problem with them. I prefer my 2000C over my panel mounted Garmin, any day of the week!

L.Adamson · #16 05-10-2006, 06:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mrreddick

I prefer my 2000C over my panel mounted Garmin, any day of the week!

The resolution and memory of a panel mounted Garmin 430/530 is much lower compared to a Garmin 296/396.

How about the 2000C versus the Garmin 1000 panel mount?

cobra · #17 05-10-2006, 07:47 AM

Larry,
It seems to me the resolution issue might be significant if you use the 396 as a handheld (close to your eyes) or mounted a "steering wheel", but not if it is mounted on the panel. On the panel, bigger seems better to me, particularly with the digital number displays.

RV8N · #18 05-10-2006, 09:23 AM

I bought an Airmap 100 in 1999 at Oshkosh. I would have bought a Garmin but I needed a vertical orientation for the only place I can mount it. If you buy a Garmin with vertical orientation, the buttons are above the screen, you cover the screen every time you push a button. That was unacceptable. I bought the Airmap 100 and have been very happy with it. I recently tried to upgrade the database and was told the about the memory size and the $100 trade-in. I will probably buy an Airmap 500 or 600C but will not trade in the Airmap 100. I will use a RAM mount to attach it to the seat back support so my wife can play with it and navigate from the back seat. She will love it and it will be worth a lot more than $100 to her.

Karl

L.Adamson · #19 05-10-2006, 07:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cobra

Larry,
It seems to me the resolution issue might be significant if you use the 396 as a handheld (close to your eyes) or mounted a "steering wheel", but not if it is mounted on the panel. On the panel, bigger seems better to me, particularly with the digital number displays.

Mike,

The Garmin 1000 "glass panel" system uses 1024*768 resolution for it's 10 & 15" MFD displays. The Avidyne Entegra uses 800*600, and the difference is quite noticeable. High res gets rid of the "blocky" look.

With the 296/396 you have choices for sizing the letters & numbers, as well as a host of other display options, and I'll assume the same with the Garmin 1000.

Liberty Ship · #20 05-10-2006, 08:11 PM

[/IMG]I have the Lorance 1000 and I must admit I think it is a great value and very easy to read with old eyes. But the Garmin has a logbook feature that I wish I had. I wanted to upgrade at Sun-N-Fun to the 2000 but the color did not show up in the sun as well as the 1000 mono-chrome.