hotrod180 wrote:I'm curious what you guys like so much about the G496 that you would choose it over the newer-fangled ipad type stuff?

The iPAD was born from a computer operating system. The Garmin was born from interfacing GPS to a navigator.

The two companies have tried to diverge on each other's strengths. Two different missions trying to take each other's markets.

Disclaimer: never tried G496, but I have own/used about (15) GARMINs and pretty much understand what their vertical market is

I fly with an iPad as my primary nav. I have a panel mounted 296 I use for backup and to feed GPS data to my ADI.

My iPad is the 1st gen iPad 2, and was essentially free since my wife was going to upgrade anyway. I use a Bad Elf external GPS Pro since I have an older iPad with an unreliable internal GPS (lost signal a few times on its own). With the Bad Elf I've never lost signal. Worst I've seen is 10m accuracy.

I didn't want to spend the money on the Stratus, so I didn't. I can get weather data on the iPad via cellular data most everywhere I fly. Though I do want to build one of those neat RPi things and hard wire that into the aircraft.

I also have a 1st Gen Nexus 7 that I loaded Avare on but I haven't tried it in the cockpit. One of these days I'll remember to pack it and try it out. Should get the same GPS signal from the Bad Elf and is significantly smaller than my big-assed iPad.

But I love the functionality of Foreflight. I may end up just buying an iPad mini one of these days so I can keep using Foreflight.


I've flown behind a 795 a few times as well, and that's a nice piece of equipment. For the cost, I'll stick to my iPad though.

If I was flying true IFR, I'd have paper backups as well. Or maybe a pair of iPads? I've never had a Foreflight glitch in the cockpit. Every times there's been a SNAFU with the iPad its been something I could have prevented with a little preventative action. They've also all been easy to fix. The worst case required an iPad hard reset. I think it took about 2 minutes to get everything up and running again (old, old iPad). I restart the iPad now prior to flights and its never happened again.

8GCBC wrote:

hotrod180 wrote:I'm curious what you guys like so much about the G496 that you would choose it over the newer-fangled ipad type stuff?

The iPAD was born from a computer operating system. The Garmin was born from interfacing GPS to a navigator.

The two companies have tried to diverge on each other's strengths. Two different missions trying to take each other's markets.

Disclaimer: never tried G496, but I have own/used about (15) GARMINs and pretty much understand what their vertical market is

I think he meant Garmin 496 when he said G496.

CamTom12 wrote:

8GCBC wrote:

hotrod180 wrote:I'm curious what you guys like so much about the G496 that you would choose it over the newer-fangled ipad type stuff?

The iPAD was born from a computer operating system. The Garmin was born from interfacing GPS to a navigator.

The two companies have tried to diverge on each other's strengths. Two different missions trying to take each other's markets.

Disclaimer: never tried G496, but I have own/used about (15) GARMINs and pretty much understand what their vertical market is

I think he meant Garmin 496 when he said G496.

I getting old! Thank you Cameron for your clarification! (I like my little "G496", car, boat [BlueChart] and aircraft)

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