Garmins last 5 years out of the box. Don't expect them to last!
Unfortunately, aside from the earlier Garmin units out there, I have to agree with the above and admit that as they got more involved in the consumer electronics market with automotive GPS as opposed to their aviation products, they began using the same components as their Nuvi's and StreetMap units, built alongside each other in 'Garmin-Town', Taiwan. We really don't do much Garmin anymore these days, maybe 5 to 10 units a year primarily the 5'' and below units as backups or combo units for smaller boats, which are a good value; however their networked systems, especilly considering the quality of their radars/fishfinder modules, I stay away from due to too many issues with brand new equipment failures out of the box or within a very unreasonable time. Back in 2007/8 when the 4K/5K units came out they were ahead of the curve graphically/price point and the hottest box on the market, although that user interface kind of went against their most popular advantage; user friendliness. The 2000/3000 series had a button for each option, plus the ability to use the menu/submenu method of operation. However, with the 4K/5K, which became the basis for all of their units even up to the 7000 series, I was very disappointed that they went in that direction. You still have Garmin-philes who will swear by their units, however I'll even say that the Furuno NavNet3D, with Furuno's reputation for being the most difficult to use, is 10x more intuitive with so many different ways to operate based on user preference, is a much more 'user friendly' unit than the Garmin's out there. And back to the topic, obviously the Furuno products last 25 to 30 years out of the box, as they're built to a bit of a different standard. Of the big four, Furuno, Raymarine, Simrad(Navico), and Garmin - every company except Garmin came from a commercial/military background. Garmin has always been a 'consumer electronics' company, and just waterproofing the connectors doesn't, in my mind, qualify their equipment as marine electronics, which are not toys, they are tools for navigation.
Disclaimer: This is a rather large generalization, as I realize many people own Garmin equipment have had great success with them, this is only my opinion as a technical dealer who gets to deal with warranty issues, bugs, software revisions, dealing with each technical support division for all companies, and has seen the transformation of the industry standard from dedicated, standalone units to Multi-Function Displays that do everything under the sun. Whether or not that is a good thing, I suppose that remains to be seen, however with NMEA2000 networking the ability for redundant devices and data sources make an MFD much more reliable, as long as a system is well thought out, and executed/installed to the factory specification.
My apologies for the rant, just caught me at a time where I'm waiting for a phone call, and had enough time to drop my two cents in the meter.
- WR
