Friday, September 23, 2011

RENTING A GPS BUNDLE PACKAGE?

I found a website that offers moving map gps and tabletpc with xm weather, radio some have electronic charts approach plates and so on. they have a yearly subscription, pay as you need and rentals if you need a gps quick. is this a good deal? the yearly sub is 1200.00 a year for the bundle ie tabletpc xm weather, radio charts and approach plates and when i want to use it i schedule a time for the gps to be at my house and i keep it for a week then send it back until i want to make another xcountry flight. it seems good cause if i purchased everything i would pay 3k for the tabletpc 49 per month for wether 13 per month for radio and the cost for yearly subscription for the charts and plates. not to mention i get a new updated gps/tablepc rather then mine being old and out of date. what do you guys think??|||I took a different approach. One I bought a tablet computer, wasn't anywhere near 3K. Yes you can spend that but there isn't any need.


In fact I bought a Samsung Q1u for under $400.00.





The I bought the software and load it. 1200/year,, is not a good deal, I paid less than that for the tablet, software,and GPS.





A GPS receiver is all of about $50.00 for bluetooth these days. The XM receiver, if you want weather can be had for around $600.00 or less if you find a used system. and the level of subscription is up to you $29 or $49/mo. The yearly cost of software updates was about 199.00 if I remember correctly which then assures I have current data.





I guess its all in the eye of the beholder really. But there are less expensive ways to have full systems.|||I think you would be better off just buying the GPS and getting the single database updates as you need them.





the only time the GPS has to be updated is if you are using it a primary navigation. I update mine about once every six months. Some of the owners I fly for update the GPS in the plane every year (unless we are going IFR somewhere, then they update it before the flight).





You might want to look at the Bendix King Av8or GPS. It does what the Garmin does for about 1/2 the price.





For the record, I have the Garmin 696 and its a great system, but is highly overpriced. Both for the hardware and the updates.

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