Gene Kearns wrote:
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008 21:18:39 -0700, Josh Assing penned the following
well considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

|for years; I've been a garmin fan -- I've liked their UI and generally; I've
|been really pleased with their products. I sitll have a working 12xl...
|
|2 years ago I bought, what I thought was, a nice system (Garmin 498 sounder) --
|however, I soon found out it was discontinued.
|
|I began to have problems with it. So I hauled and replaced the tranducer as
|that's what their tech support said it was... Same issues remained.
|
|I have been told "no more software updates for it" -- but they'll take $175 from
|me to "look at it and fix it if they can"
|
|I thought I'd update to a non-discontinued model so I can get software updates
|as they come out -- however, I need to use an external antenna.
|I wanted their G2 Vision cards --- but the jump from 498 cost to a 4xxxx series
|is 3x the cost ($2000 for a cheap 4xxxx series) . Apparently that's the
|cheapest unit that uses an external atenna according to their tech support; the
|rest are internal antennas.
|
|Is it time to move on to something different? I've been responsible for close
|to $10,000 in garmin purchases and feel like they've always been helpful; but
|now that it's just little old me, "thanks for your money send us more" is their
|attitude....
|They won't say if the issues I'm having are 'fixable' -- so Im stuck with
|sending my unit for a month or more + 175 or putting that 175 towards towards a
|new (non-garmin) unit.
|
|Anyone have any helpful thoughts?
|
|Thanks
|-josh

I presently have a Garmin 225 GPS. When it dies, it will NOT be
replaced by another Garmin unit. I'll probably go Raymarine, like
SWS...



Hmmm. I have an almost new Garmin 4000 series chart plotter that works
well for me. I "borrowed" a G2 Vision card for it, and decided it wasn't
worth the effort it takes to use it. Over the years, I've had a number
of Garmin products, starting with a Model 75 GPS many years ago. On the
few occasions I've had to interact with Garmin tech support, I found the
company's people to be competent.

I do own a bit of Garmin stock. Not much.