Garmin 276C "Plus"? Anyone see this yet?

[Badmunkie]

Just found this on KTMTalk.com

"Four dedicated navigation modules for powerboating, sailboating, automotive and off-road"


http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...0901&ref=81902

Anyone have an inside line to Garmin's future product offerings.

'munkie

[rcompton]

Originally Posted by Badmunkie

Just found this on KTMTalk.com

"Four dedicated navigation modules for powerboating, sailboating, automotive and off-road"


http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs...0901&ref=81902

Anyone have an inside line to Garmin's future product offerings.

'munkie

West just added a few icons/menu options to a 276c and pasted their logo, and an extra $150 to the price. Nothing to add any real value. I am about to purchase a 276c for my bike/sailboat/car and looked at that when I was last atmy local West marine.

[yzf1kr]

This is in their reviews:

This is Chuck Hawley from West Marine (I rated this product, which I love, as a 3 so as not to impact the STAR ratings of this product, and I am not try to stuff the ballot box, but rather trying to answer the questions above. I was responsible for the custom features in the West Marine 76CS Plus and 276C Plus models.) Four User modes o Sailboat, Powerboat, Car, Off Road o By selecting the appropriate user mode, you only see the pages and cartography relevant to your application. o Press & hold the PAGE key to change the user modes. Allows user to click on map to create waypoints on the fly. Allows user to drag and drop routes. Improved LCD display. o Latest version of the transreflective screen o Brighter and more daylight viewable Can personalize the screen with vessel name, etc. Marine logbook page stores vessel speed, position, & heading in non-volatile memory every 30 minutes (or a user selectable interval up to 8 hours) o Allows user to see a log of where you’ve been. o Allows user to call up a chart with your stored position for any of the selected time intervals. Can upload an image (such as your vessel) to view on the startup screen. Automatically uses the most accurate Bluechart resolution with the scale to display the most accurate cartography data. If you store a setting which might impact the accuracy of your navigation like User Entered Mag Variation, the 276C+ will advise that you have it stored when powering up. o This makes it more obvious when the user has a stored variable which is only temporary. The 76cs+ software has many features of the more expensive Garmin 96cs Aviation unit

I would like to get my hands on the firmware of one of these units.

But I don't think the changes will be very usefull for on-land usage.
For off-road riding you can already switch to "Marine" mode on a normal 276c to have some very usefull tools.

[Swiss]

I've used the 276C over a year now on the boat as well as off the boat and many of the features pointed out in the review are also present in the latest firmware updated from Garmin. Not to say that there are no differences, at least the way they are described, but they seem to be minute. Furthermore, with Garmin traditionally releasing new firmware every few months, it's just a question of time until all will be standard.

Just my thoughts on this issue .....

Swiss

[BurnieM]

So basically a marine log book - moderately useful for boats
and
automatically turns on/off highway/compass page for different modes
(takes me 5 seconds to do manually)

Hmmmm....
....maybe worth $10. How much extra is he charging ?