SA charts
Ben, I just recently became a SA charts user. I have fairly fast internet connection and it took about 2 1/2 hours to download WA, ID, OR, CA sectionals, low alt IFR, and all the approach charts and airport diagrams. The data goes to a thumb drive and the drive needs to be installed in the SkyView USB jack to have the charts available. This was my first download, future downloads only update what is new so will be faster.
I suggest a quality USB stick, not a cheapo, and make it at least 32GB.
If you have two screens there needs to be a data thumb drive in each screen. I like having the sectional on the right screen and use an uncluttered Dynon map for navigation on the pilot EFIS. It is easy to swap the screens if you want to see something on the sectional up close.
I use a Mac now after too much frustration with Windows but I still have an old IBM laptop with WinXP and the SA download manager works fine on that machine. The download manager program is not real user friendly but once you see how it works, it is acceptable and I had no glitches downloading the charts.
As far as product quality is concerned, the chart imagery is good and very nice to have on the SkyView. One feature I really like is being able to toggle between the map and the last chart viewed or an airport taxi diagram with the right joystick button. Once on the ground at a busy airport like PAE or BFI you can pull up the taxi diagram quickly when you call ground for taxi instructions. The taxi diagrams are geo-referenced so the little airplane tags along with you on the screen.
I don't think the imagery is any better than what is on FF. The big thing for me is just having everything needed on the Dynon.
I too have FF on the iPad and will now only have it aboard for back-up. I'm not too sure I even need it for back-up. I never liked using the iPad in the cockpit. With the SA charts you have the electronic flight bag right on the screen in front of you. Yes, it is another annual subscription, but I think it will be worth it.