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Captain Sacto

Well Known Member
This is tempting...

I just noticed that Sporty's reduced the price of the Garmin 696 (kneeboard gps) by $800, down to $2199; and this price is fairly constant throughout the various online pilot supplies vendors.

My question to the learned folks on this fine site... is there a newer model forthcoming, or some other reason (such as a new competitive product or reported "issues" with the unit) why I probably should wait a while before I consider ordering the unit?

Opinions invited. Thanks in advance! Tom in Sacramento.

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As far as i know this was a direct relational reduction along with the GDU's (that are part of the G3X system) a month or two ago before OSH....no other reason that we can tell! When the price of the panel mounts came down with the G3X the portable just followed. No doubt there will be something new someday, but typical dates for release of new stuff usually happens at one of the big shows (SnF, OSH, AOPA).

What I would guess is that any new 696 replacement would be pretty neat if and when it came out!

My 2 cents as usual.

Cheers,
Stein
 
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Captain Sacto said:
This is tempting...

I just noticed that Sporty's reduced the price of the Garmin 696 (kneeboard gps) by $800, down to $2199; and this price is fairly constant throughout the various online pilot supplies vendors.

My question to the learned folks on this fine site... is there a newer model forthcoming, or some other reason (such as a new competitive product or reported "issues" with the unit) why I probably should wait a while before I consider ordering the unit?

Opinions invited. Thanks in advance! Tom in Sacramento.

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Click to expand...

I'm not sure about forthcoming products, but I bought a 696 at Oshkosh and I am not very impressed. Considering my 496 was 4 years old, I figured the internal battery would go bad at any time and rather than taking a chance ruining it while replacing the battery myself or sending it in and being charged an outrageous amount to have it replaced, I'd just upgrade to something else. I was very interested in an I-pad with one of the new aviation aps such as Foreflight so it was a toss-up as to which to purchase. Garmin not only lowered the 696 price plus had a $200 rebate at the show but I also found out that PCA would give me a $1000 trade in allowance for my 496. So, for about $1000 I could "upgrade." The trade in allowance clinched the deal.

I may have made a poor choice. The 696 has locked up multiple times as has been reported by others on VAF. I had missed those threads and was unaware of the problem until I started researching the issue after the fact. Other than a bigger and brighter screen, I liked my 496 better. It had more features that I used and it fit in my panel without exposed wiring. The 496 had auto and marine features and was rock solid.

I believe the I-pad competition may have played a part in the price reduction but that is just a guess.

One caveat, I don't have a lot of hours with the 696, perhaps 20 or so. I hope I'll grow to like it better. But in any case, the lock up issue needs to be resolved. I'm hoping Garmin comes out with a software or firmware update that fixes it. The 696 is an aviation specific GPS and for it to act up like this is inexcusable. I'd hold off buying one until they resolve this issue.

One guy's opinion.
 
Caveman said:
One caveat, I don't have a lot of hours with the 696, perhaps 20 or so. I hope I'll grow to like it better. But in any case, the lock up issue needs to be resolved. I'm hoping Garmin comes out with a software or firmware update that fixes it. The 696 is an aviation specific GPS and for it to act up like this is inexcusable. I'd hold off buying one until they resolve this issue.

One guy's opinion.
Click to expand...

Hey Joe, what has Garmin said about the lockup's? I'd be a bit upset myself if a new-out-of-the-box system that expensive was acting up, and I'd call for a replacement under warranty!

Just FYI - I've had a 696 in my plane since before they were introduced, and have yet to experience a lockup (that wasn't caused by loading beta software).....

Paul
 
Caveman said:
I may have made a poor choice. The 696 has locked up multiple times as has been reported by others on VAF. I had missed those threads and was unaware of the problem until I started researching the issue after the fact. Other than a bigger and brighter screen, I liked my 496 better.
Click to expand...

As a 296, 496, and 696 owner..............I'd never go back to the teenie weenie 496 screen. Have used the 696 for two years, and no lockups. I must have missed those threads too, although I seem to read about everything.

L.Adamson
 
Lock ups

I have had a 696 in my RV10 since April 2010 and have 100 hrs. It has locked up twice. Both times happen when the internal battery gets low. The only way I could unlock it was to remove the 696 from the plane and remove and reinstall the battery pack and then charge with the 110 V charger. The unit is panel mounted and hooked into airplane power but if the internal battery is low it will not charge off the airplane power. I always check the battery status before flight if the aircraft has sat for any length of time or I have used it on its own battery. I have Xm weather on the 696 so when I cross country my F1 Rocket, I remove the 696 from the Rv10 and take it along. The battery pack alone will only last for 45 min max so I plug it in and run off the F1 power.
What I like.
Big screen is great.
Easy to panel mount.
What I don't
I do not find the operation of the unit to be as intuitive as the 196-496. I have learn how to operate but it takes a while for some one as slow as me.
The XM Attenna has a different plug so I cannot swap it between my 496 and 696.
Battery life is short. Not much good as a hand held without plugging it into power. I think this is standard with Garmin pruducts.
Battery will not come up to charge when it is low unless plugged into 110 V.
I paid too much for it. Good to hear the price has come down.
RV 10 100 hrs
F1 Rocket 500 hrs
 
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Wayne Hadath said:
I have had a 696 in my RV10 since April 2010 and have 100 hrs. It has locked up twice. Both times happen when the internal battery gets low. The only way I could unlock it was to remove the 696 from the plane and remove and reinstall the battery pack and then charge with the 110 V charger. The unit is panel mounted and hooked into airplane power but if the battery is low it will not charge off the airplane power. I always check the battery status before flight if the aircraft has sat for any length of time or I have used it on its own battery.
Click to expand...

Perhaps, charging technique is the difference. My 696 always used aircraft power. If the plane wasn't charged for a period of time, I'd connect a charger to the airplanes battery, to bring it up to 12 V.+

Twice- I ended up dimming the 696... enough, to not see the screen. I've never had to remove the battery pack. Has around 140 hrs on it. I paid way too much also.....

L.Adamson
 
Ive heard rumors of a Garmin system to bridge the gap between the G900 and G3X... That may be a small part of the price drop, however it's more likely a direct correlation to the price drop of the G3X.

BTW I wouldnt hold my breath on a new system. Garmin moves at Garmins pace... Which is tectonic.
 
My bet is Garmin is about to drop the 69X line and push anyone who wants a big screen GPS to also have to buy an EFIS, a la, 3X. Better integration, yada, yada. If such happens, it may open more market share for B-K and the other larger screen mfgrs, but even then I wouldn't expect them to sell much more since their screens are the typical awful compared to 69X. We shall see.

Regarding glitches, my 695 occasionally hangs up during boot, "Software missing". Horsepucky. When this happens it's also unresponsive to the handbook reset method (push left and right soft buttons and scale out simultaneously). The only way to regain control is remove ship's power, which for me means shutting down the avionics master.

John Siebold
Boise, ID
 
The 696 price drop occurred at the same time as the G3X and GX Pilot price drop around the time of Sun'n Fun. Garmin appears to be trying to get a bigger foothold in the experimental market with the G3X/GX Pilot/VP-X Pro collaboration.

I've never had a problem with my 696 and in fact, I chose the G3X system for my panel upgrade because I like my 696 so much. I wonder if doing a hard reset might solve the lock-up issue if you haven't already done it. Matt Burch could help with this. I'm sure he'll chime in tomorrow when he's back at work at Garmin. Sending it in to the factory might also help if the reset doesn't work. Once this issue is resolved, you will love it!!
 
Supply and Demand

They are trying to move them because they are not selling or they need to clear stock before introduction af a new model as you suspect.

I have had my 695 for several years and I have never had a lock up during operation but the ON-OFF operation is ocassionally a mystery. After decades of speed of light response to activation of on-off switches the response of this unit (no immediate dedicated response to pushing the on-off button) is not as expected. It is not a good man/machine interface design. If this startup glitch is what you are talking about as far as lockup is concerned then yes I have had it.

My dislikes of the display are too subjective and too many to go into again.

It works consistently for me once powered up and I use the navigation features for planning and as a backup in flight. I never owned any of the other X96 models such as the 496.

Bob Axsom
 
I suspect part of the price drop is the Ipad. The programs are getting so good and the monthly costs using foreflight or other options so much lower garmin had to react. With the FAA now granting certification of the IPad as a class 1 EFB its got to be putting the heat on everyone else.

George
 
Lock Up

Bob
Yes, there is a start up glitch but this is not the lock up. When my unit locks up it gets confused and finally turns black and will not power up. On the second time it locked up I noticed that the screen became very hot to touch. This is not the only Garmin product that I have purchased that has left me underwhelmed.
Wayne
 
Ironflight said:
Hey Joe, what has Garmin said about the lockup's? I'd be a bit upset myself if a new-out-of-the-box system that expensive was acting up, and I'd call for a replacement under warranty!

Just FYI - I've had a 696 in my plane since before they were introduced, and have yet to experience a lockup (that wasn't caused by loading beta software).....

Paul
Click to expand...

Paul that's a fair question. I'm trying to reproduce the problem so I'll know what to tell the tech guys when I call. So far, it has done it 3 times. Once in a hot cockpit while on the ground. Once inside the FBO running on battery power, and once in flight shortly after take-off. It's been extremely hot here and the cockpit was likely over 100f on both "in airplane" lock ups.

The instance in the FBO has me baffled. I was going to show my gps track coming home from Osh to the local airport bums, of which I am president :D (cause I flew all over the country dodging storms) and I got the "software not found" or some such message that others have reported. The message is not documented in the manual. My new toy failed me and I was humilitated.:( The FBO was a chilly 75 or so. Needless to say the bum crowd hasn't let me live it down.

The one time it happened in flight it just locked up with the page visible but with me unable to change to another page. If IIRC, I had moved the knob to the destination airport info page and it was "overlayed" over the map page. Rotating the knob would not page back to the map nor any other page. Punching the soft key buttons at the bottom of the unit did nothing either. Trying to power it off did not work.

In all cases the "left and right + range button reboot trick" worked.

After my earlier post, I went and flew Sunday. I logged 1.8 doing nothing but flying around trying to get it to lock up. The cockpit was probably cooler at start up because the plane was in the hangar but my EFIS said OAT was 32c. As you can probably guess the 696 worked flawlessly.:confused:

Have you used yours with cockpit temperatures over 100? There are warnings in the manual not to leave it in a hot airplane in direct sun and it says not to operate it above 140f. I have not done either of those.

We've had so many 100 degree days here this summer that I'd be grounded a lot if it is temperature related. If it happens again, I'll call Garmin regardless of the circumstances. I'll check for software and firmware updates first, though.
 
Good detailed notes Joe - I wonder if it's a battery problem of some kind?

Caveman said:
Have you used yours with cockpit temperatures over 100?
Click to expand...


Yes, unfortunately...we had something like 19 straight +100 days here in Houston this summer. The 696 worked great...the PILOT was melting however...
 
When i originally designed my panel, i chose a symmetric center stack design thinking a portable 496 would go in the center top spot.

However, with the Ipad and the 796, the trend is going towards a much larger screen. Now i am regretting not moving the radio stack further to the right of center. Argh!
 
Refurbished

I thought I owed it to VAF and Garmin to resurrect this thread and update readers about my 696 issue. After being encouraged by Paul on line and others off line to quit messing with it and call Garmin, I did just that. The tech rep asked very few questions. One of them was something like, "Did your unit have an SD card installed." When I told him no, he said that they would need to repair or replace it and gave me an RMA #. No arguement at all. So after a week and a half of down time or so, I received another unit that looks new but had a "refurbished" sticker on the packaging. The paperwork referenced an error code in the failure and fault section of the other unit. Garmin had updated all the maps and transfered my personal waypoints. I just UPS'ed it regular delivery so turnaround could have been faster if I'd have shelled out more money. I played with it on my lunch break and received no error messages. So, I loaded it up in my truck with the charging cable plugged in and drove back to work. I had the windows lowered about 1 inch and left it charging all afternoon. When I came back out the truck temperature was 106 degrees f. and the ambient was 97 degrees. The 696 worked fine with no error messages. I cycled it on and off several times before taking it out to the airplane. I haven't flown with it yet but I'm pretty sure the issue is resolved. I'm happy with the customer service and I've gotten over the disapointment of shelling out big bucks for a lemon. It isn't the only lemon I've been dealt in life. I guess every manufacturer is entitled to a few. It would be unreasonable to expect a 100% manufacturing success rate. We hold our aviation suppliers to a very high standard. I appreciate the VAF and Garmin support.

Oh, and I actually flew a 200 nm round trip cross country last weekend using nothing but pilotage. Then I fired up the AFS GPS in the panel and got some time behind it on a second cross coutry before the 696 showed up today. Good practice.
 
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The decided they could charge less up front because they make such a killing on the updates that they get from the government for free :eek:

BTW: ours locked up once ... The OAT was over 108 deg. Inside was scorching. set the brightness to 9 max and hasn't done it again. But it hasn't been that hot again either....
 
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