I've been a fan of Garmin's GPSs ever since I spent several hundred hours teaching people how to fly the Cirrus SR20 and SR22, which have dual Garmin GPSs as standard equipment. But I learned early on that having a super-charged piece of avionics is not all peaches and cream. There's a steep learning curve, and I can't count the number of times I had to tell new Cirrus owners to get their heads out of the cockpit and watch for traffic rather than fiddling with their new toy.So when I had the chance to try Garmin's handheld GPSMAP 196, I was very curious to see what were its capabilities and complexities. It's not a permanent, IFR-approved GPS to go in your instrument panel, but it has so many features that it can take time to learn how to use all of them. In a sense, it is three times as sophisticated as an ordinary handheld GPS, because it is intended to operate in three different environments.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/ownership/garmin-gpsmap-196