DON'T BUY AN AVMAP EKP-IV !!
We bought one .. looks very impressive, with the big screen and all that. Had all the water and lochs outlined nicely .... but ....
Reliability ? = Sh#te - we had 3 units exchanged over 12 months
Customer support ? = Sh#te - Avmap in Italy didn't even respond to email queries or software registration. They are useless.
User Forum ? =Sh#te - closed down .. because of all the negative comments?
Heard that over 40 units have been returned in the last year alone (from one supplier) because of chip problems.
If you buy it you are asking for trouble.
Shame, cos it has a lot of potential, but the market moves fast.
We exchanged it (thanks Harry) for a Lowrance Airmap 2000C and are now VERY happy.
We compared the Lowrance Airmap 2000C with the Garmin496 and the Skymap. Skymap reminded me of playing The Hobbit on a Sinclair Spectrum back in the 1980s .. very clunky and not impressive.
IMHO the Garmin 496 is not worth the extra over the Garmin 396 because you can't get TIS and Weather info in Europe .. so you would be paying an extra £500-£600 just to get a better obstruction database. Also the fancy, bright colours in the ads are not that bright on screen, and especially not if it is on a panel mount at a slight angle. Garmin was more intuitive than the Lowrance, but the small screen put me off.
Terrain on the Avmap was out on a lot of the Scottish mountains - sometimes by up to 1000 feet. This is because they only sample height info ar 30secs of arc intervals, so can miss peaks. Not very good. Avmap said that it was the same database as Garmin ... I'm not sure ... the Lowrance seems to be much more accurate than the Avmap in this regard.
Lowrance has big bright screen and is easy to use once you practice a bit.
Lowrance has spilt screens, HSI, Terrain and it is almost half the price of the Avmap or the 496... and it has an
online emulator that you can try !!!