Available Portable GPS's

So here's a quick rundown of available portable aviation GPS units:

  Dedicated Devices

    Garmin

    GPS496 - The standard by which all others are measured. Definitely the most popular unit. It is very capable and interfaces with XM Weather and passive traffic advisory devices. All of this comes at a cost, only the large screen unit from Garmin costs more.

    GPS696 - Basically, a larger version of the 496. The extra screen size really enhances the usability of the split screen modes.

    Lowrance

    600C - Very high quality GPS unit. The screen size is similar to the 496, but the unit fits much better on the yoke than the Garmin. The big drawback to the Lowrance models is that they do not interface with XM weather or taffic systems.

    2000C - One of the earliest large screen GPS's. Again, very high quality and yoke mountable, but no outside interfaces.

    AvMap

    EKP-IV - A large screen GPS with interfaces to traffic and weather systems. An innovative feature here is the ability to upload photos of airports that are viewable in-flight (you can see an overhead of the actual airport before you get there).

  PC Based Devices

     ControlVision - The makers of AnywhereMap, which is the leader in this market segment. The software is fairly easy to use and quite reliable. They produce versions for PDA's and laptops which interface with traffic and weather. These units were also the first to have approach plates and taxi diagrams.

    PCAvionics - This company produces the MountainScope software package for PDA's and laptops. The big advantage to this package is that terrain features are very detailed - no blockiness on the display. MountainScope does interface to both traffic and weather.

  Hybrid Devices

    ControlVision ATC - This unit is from the same folks who offer the AnywhereMap product. It runs on a modified PDA platform so that the unit functions much more like a dedicated unit, while offering the abliity to upgrade the software.



Clear skies and tailwinds!
Mike