The handheld GPS is a great toy and a wonderful gimmick, but no replacement for a chart
I guess I'm missing something here. A chart is very valuable and it's not at all a bad idea to carry them round with you, but I've yet to see a chart that will tell you where you are...?
A GPS, on the other hand, is quite good at this.
A handheld GPS is therefore a pretty useful emergency backup for whatever in-plane navaids you have (a 530 and 430 in my case). Of course the perfect pilot knows where they are when the alternator dies and the battery shortly afterwards, but that still won't help them get down through 10000' of clag to make a safe landing, or fly safely to a place where a VFR descent and landing can be made. A handheld GPS is quite capable of doing just that. I'm not at all clear on how any number of charts can do it.
And for something you only use in an emergency, some kind of sure-to-be-there power source is extremely important. (Which is why I carry a big bag of new Duracells round in my flight bag - having learned the hard way that cheap no-brand alkalines are often dead when you need them).
So not only is SNS a tedious didact (in this instance at least), but also what he is saying doesn't make any sense.
n5296s