[Wing_96]

Originally Posted by killbilly

The Lowrance stuff seems to be good quality from what I've read, and it's about half the price of the Garmin stuff. Why? Is it just features?

I bought a Garmin 96 a few years ago. A buddy of mine had a Lowrance of similar function. I don't remember the exact model, but it was comparable to the Garmin 96. At any rate, we did a side-by-side comparison during a x-country of about 150 miles. The only really significant problem we noted with the Lowrance was that it lost the GPS signal five or six times, where my Garmin never lost the satellites once. These results are not scientific of course, but that was my experience with the two hand-helds.

The Garmin 96 doesn't have a lot of the features that the higher models have, but I think it fits your first desire...portable. It's small enough you can carry it in flight bag pockets. Plus, when it's mounted on the yoke, it's small enough that you can still see the instruments on the panel.

I hope that helps.