I agree with Solocmy. Have owned garmin products and yes the 296 is great, if now becoming a bit dated but the Lowrance 2000c does pretty well everything it does and has a bigger brighter screen also- and is much cheaper but perhaps a little more 'clunky'.
You should update your database every month - but I have seen some folk flying around using databases going back to 1992(!)- hopefully not for primary nav purposes. I downloaded an update for a garmin 196 lately for US$35 and it was easy to do. I think it costs less per update for multiple updates. All of the info is on the garmin website.