There are new goodies coming out all the time. We are deliberately
delaying the purchase of Fintry's electronics because prices are
falling and there's always a new gadget.

I should add that although I know what I think is best, I'm not going
to make any brand suggestions both because you're unlikely to want a
12kw radar with six foot antenna and because the choice is very
personal.

So, go to one of the larger boat shows (I was surprised that Furuno
and Simrad were not represented at Newport -- but your e-mail address
suggests you could make it to Fort Lauderdale or Miami) and look at
Furuno, Raymarine, and Simrad. (I don't mean to rule out
Koden/Si-tex, but they don't make big boat stuff, so I don't know them
as well). While all three systems do much the same thing, they do it
differently. Their user interfaces are very different -- more so than
Apple versus Windows, for example. I like one of the menu trees much
better than the others.

Their systems also fit together differently:
-- Will you have a flybridge?
-- How paranoid are you about redundancy?
-- Do you need to see the screens in the sunlight?
-- Will you have a computer aboard?
-- Will you install it yourself or have a pro do it?
-- Do you like raster or vector charts?

There are some price differences. These seem to be largely a result
of Moore's law -- the most recent design is cheapest.

Jim Woodward
www.mvFintry.com

"Patrick" wrote in message m...
Hi folks,

We're getting ready to install a new suite of marine electronics for a 32'
cruiser and haven't been shopping for a few years... Curious to get some
opinions on state-of-the-art systems for a recreational boat in this size
range nowadays. The 10" RayMarine bright color combo with chart/radar/fish
and coupled autopilot used to be good a few years back, is this still the
case? Is there a better system available now?

Thanks.
Pat