Fellow Builders,
I am getting ready to cut holes in my panel so I'll be committed on my avionics pretty soon, but I'm having a little bit of cold feet on my garmin 495 (I live in Alaska so there isn't any XM weather).
The problem is the cost for updates. Garmin charges you $50 per update, but then they don't include everything in the update, you must pay for it over again with navdata, obstacles, and terrain, which makes this little GPS very expensive to update.
I'm already going to get 430w updates which I'm sure will be very expensive (can't even figure out where on the jeppesen site to buy this stuff) but do I really need this expense on my portable/backup as well?
I'm thinking about buying another GPS and selling my 495 just to get cheaper updates. I see their are many models available including the flight cheetah, ifly, and a number of others where the updates are a fraction the cost of garmin updates.
So the question is this:
Are the databases and units from other vendors on par with garmin? Or is the 495 still the best option despite the update costs? I don't want to ditch garmin to find poor quality info on another unit.
Also, what if I didn't keep it updated? It seems like I'll have the info I need from my 430w or AFS so perhaps this is a non-issue.
Thanks,
schu
I am getting ready to cut holes in my panel so I'll be committed on my avionics pretty soon, but I'm having a little bit of cold feet on my garmin 495 (I live in Alaska so there isn't any XM weather).
The problem is the cost for updates. Garmin charges you $50 per update, but then they don't include everything in the update, you must pay for it over again with navdata, obstacles, and terrain, which makes this little GPS very expensive to update.
I'm already going to get 430w updates which I'm sure will be very expensive (can't even figure out where on the jeppesen site to buy this stuff) but do I really need this expense on my portable/backup as well?
I'm thinking about buying another GPS and selling my 495 just to get cheaper updates. I see their are many models available including the flight cheetah, ifly, and a number of others where the updates are a fraction the cost of garmin updates.
So the question is this:
Are the databases and units from other vendors on par with garmin? Or is the 495 still the best option despite the update costs? I don't want to ditch garmin to find poor quality info on another unit.
Also, what if I didn't keep it updated? It seems like I'll have the info I need from my 430w or AFS so perhaps this is a non-issue.
Thanks,
schu
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