Garmin 5000 Series

[sailortjk1]

Anybody have any first (Or Second) hand feedback on the new Garmin Chartplotters/Displays?
I was brousing around my local West the other day when I got to play with one for a minute or two.
They seem to be very nice and easy to use and very, very user friendly.
Touch screen control sure beats the heck out of the curser that I currently have.
With 15", 12" and 8" display, I think they are going to attract a lot of attention.
Expandable with 3d view, and or fish eye view.???
Just wondering what the community thought of them.
I know the price tag is high, but so is everything else in this caliber of the electronics field.

[Alden68]

I read in yachting magazine that the touch screen was very problamatic in a seaway and inadvertant double clicking made the unit do things you did not want it to do.

[lbdavis]

Originally Posted by sailortjk1

I know the price tag is high, but...

That's one way of putting it. Price.

In my admittedly gadget heavy life, I have given up on trying to stay on top of the technology curve. Today's widget is often an overpriced edition of yesterday's widget with few added features.

That is not the case with the revolution GPS/ Chartplotters are currently undergoing. This new technology is unbelievably sexy (especially that touch screen) and vastly different from yesterday's GPS/ Chartplotters. But my HO would be to wait a year or two. This curve will not continue and soon these units will be much cheaper. Particularly "last year's" model.

But hey, If you've got the scratch, spend it. Those things are sweet! Plus it will be an economic stimulus package for our ailing economy.

[lbdavis]

Originally Posted by Alden68

I read in yachting magazine that the touch screen was very problamatic in a seaway and inadvertant double clicking made the unit do things you did not want it to do.

Plus, waiting a couple of years will let them work out the kinks like Alden68 is talking about.

[sailingdog]

The problem with the new models is the user interface is still having some bugs worked out of it. This is also true of the smaller new Garmins as well.

[jzk]

It includes all US Coastal and Bahamas charts. Not bad!

[sailaway21]

At that price it ought to include every beachside bar as well.

[JiffyLube]

The touch screen is nice, but clutters up the screen to much for me. Actually I like the track ball feature on the Raymarine plotter over the way Garmin moves the cursor (I have a 3210), but I've heard that the trackball gets sticky after awhile from use. I understand that cleaning the trackball is not an easy proposition, like it is in a regular computer mouse situation.

[jrd22]

I looked at all the new Garmins ( I was interested in the 5208) at the boat show and they are pretty impressive, very user friendly, but I don't like to buy new technology and do their field testing for them. Got a new 3210C on sale at WM for $1400 instead. I feel better about buying a model that has been around for a while that they have the bugs worked out of. I'm impressed with Garmins cartography vs. C-map on our other boat, although I haven't had a chance to use the new one much yet.

John

[JiffyLube]

I used our 3210 from San Francisco to San Diego, and it worked like a charm...the radar overlay was great. I only noticed one discrepance on the charts, and that was after we had docked in one port. I had tracking on the whole way, and it showed that had we gone strictly with the chart (like at night in fog), we would have hit one dock...actually the tracking showed that we would have gone through two docks. The problem was probably in the original chart that was scanned for the plotter, because all other orientation of objects was good. That just goes to show you how important it is to use your own eyes, in conjunction with what a plotter or chart is showing you.