The GPSMAP 478's built in marine charts use the latest BlueChart g2 technology for a smoother, more fluid presentation on your screen, and feature coverage for all U.S. coastal areas, including Alaska and Hawaii. For road trips, this system comes preloaded with City Navigator NT detailed street maps for North America and offers automatic routing with voice guidance to help get you where you're going quickly and easily. The GPSMAP 478 also includes an industry leading database with more than six million points of interest including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, marinas, attractions and more. This system also tracks 10,000 points and the automatic track log saves up to 15 points. For additional flexibility, an included marine mount and automotive kit make it a snap to transfer the unit from boat to car.

With the GPSMAP 478, weather and audio options travel with your plotter, whether you're navigating on land or sea. In fact, this system can display real-time weather information on the high-resolution 256-color sunlight-readable TFT display. To help make sure you're prepared for whatever comes your way, view NEXRAD radar, storm cells, wind speeds, surface temperatures, forecasts and more than a dozen other weather attributes, so you can spend more time enjoying the water and less time worrying about the weather. And with the GXM 30 antenna, you also have the option of receiving XM Satellite Radio's 150 plus channels of commercial-free music, sports, news, talk and entertainment programming.

Used with your car, the 276c's auto routing capability lets you select a destination and get turn-by-turn directions. There's even voice prompt guidance; just hook up a 12-volt speaker cable (sold separately) and the GPSMAP 276C will audibly tell you when you need to turn and how much farther you have to go.

Data provided with the unit includes 3000 user waypoints with an expanded list of waypoint symbols; 50 reversible routes with 1,200 waypoints per route; 10,000 point automatic track log with 15 saved tracks and 700 saved track points each; position formats including Lat/Lon, UTM, Loran TDs, Maidenhead, MGRS, User, and more; a large numbers option for easy viewing, and much more.

About the size of a small paperback book and weighing less than 8 ounces, the GPS 76 fits comfortable in the palm of your hand, but is a bit big to carry in a shirt pocket. Using the unit requires almost no setup. Just put in two AA batteries, turn it on, go outside, and wait. In about a minute or so it will determine your location. It's accurate to about three meters, thanks to the unit's support for WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System), which augments GPS signals for even greater accuracy.

Knowing your longitude, latitude, and altitude doesn't mean much without a little context. That's where the GPS 76's backlit LCD display comes in, displaying your location on detailed maps. The unit comes with a built-in basemap that includes major roads, railroads, rivers, and lakes for the U.S. and Canada, as well as a high-level worldwide map. The unit also has 1 MB memory for storing downloaded points of interest data from optional CD-ROMS, like the Roads&Recreation series.

The eight buttons, directional rocker thumbpad, and menu-based interface made it simple to access all of the unit's features and customize the display. For instance, it's a simple matter to use the buttons to set and name waypoints and build planned routes. Extra features include information on tides, sunrise and sunset, and a trip computer for seeing how far you've traveled and your average speed.

To test the GPS 76 we hit the road headed for Muir Beach north of San Francisco. It tracked our progress along Highway 1, and once we reached our destination we found it very simple to use. It showed both the elevation of the hills as well as the paths we could take. The zoom-in and zoom-out function made it simple to plan out and automatically measure the distance of our intended route.

After walking for a while and enjoying the scenery, we used the TracBack mode to guide us back to our car. The unit automatically stores waypoints as you walk along, letting you display the way home clearly on the map. We even used the TracBack capability to guide us on the roads back to the freeway.

The GPS 76 comes in handy almost anywhere, whether you're hiking, driving, boating, or wandering around a city as a tourist. Its easy-to-use interface makes it immediately useful to novices, and as you learn to exploit its programmability and features it can become an extremely powerful navigation tool.--Ken Feinstein

Pros:

• Large backlit LCD
• WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) support
• Automatic TracBack shows you the way back to your start location
• PC connectivity with ability to download points of interest and waypoints

• Only 1 MB built-in memory, which can't be expanded
• Too large to fit comfortably in a shirt pocket

The GPS 76 features 500 waypoints (10 nearest, 10 proximity), 50 reversible routes with up to 50 points each, an automatic track log, and alarms for anchor drag, approach and arrival, off course, proximity waypoint, shallow water, and deep water.

The GPS 76 is also compatible with Garmin's line of downloadable MapSource CD-ROMs and will accepts up to 1 MB of map detail data. Always know just where you're going with preloaded maps of rivers, lakes, worldwide cities, navaids, and tide data. With a detailed base map, users also have the ability to look up address and telephone number information for nearby services and points of interest as well as find map detail for cities, highways, and interstates.

The 997c SI Combo uses revolutionary 800 kHz side-imaging sonar with 180-degree coverage to 360 feet to either side and 150 feet down, as well as DualBeam PLUS sonar with 20- and 60-degree beams for both wider coverage and better bottom definition down to 1,500 feet. This unit includes accelerated real-time sonar and echo enhancement technology for the instant capture of action and the sensitivity to track a jig to over 70 feet, with a target separation of 2.5 inches. The 997c also has an external, 16-channel WAAS/EGNOS GPS receiver, and a built-in UniMap of USA inland lakes, rivers, and coastal areas. This unit's high-speed, micro-dynamic transducer is reliable to 70 mph, and includes water temperature and GPS speed.

The 997c has a brilliant 8-inch TFT LCD screen with 480 x 800 lines of resolution in full color for enhanced separation, and an adjustable backlight. This unit features dual microprocessors and a graphics co-processor for fast, smooth operation, networking capability, and chart recording to SD card with on-screen playback. The 997c SI Combo NVB (Navionics Value Bundle) also features programmable view presets, dual memory card expansion slots, plug-and-play compatibility with tons of upgrade accessories, and comes pre-loaded with Navionics Gold and HotMaps yet remains easy to operate.

The 997c includes a one-touch multi-level zoom, programmable view presets, and X-Press Menus for quickly accessing important controls. This fish finder features both fresh and saltwater options, instant update to immediately show setting changes, full screen and 3D chartplotter, and Freeze Frame to pause the display, as well as a man-overboard function to track back to that most important of spots.

The 997c comes with a transom mount transducer, and a tilt-and-swivel, quick-disconnect mount system, for Gimbal or in-dash mounting. This unit measures 11.25 x 6.75 x 4.25 inches (W x H x D) as a Gimbal mount, or when in-dash mounted requires three inches of clearance. For upgrades, this system is compatible with multiple other transducers for more powerful performance. The Humminbird 997c SI Combo is fully gasketed and waterproof so it floats, and is backed by a manufacturer's one-year warranty.