What if you don't have G1000?

If all this reading on G1000 has you wanting new digital technology in your old cockpit, then Garmin, among others, may have a solution: a powerful handheld. These nowadays feature goodies such as XM Weather right in the box. Although these boxes are VFR-only, they're still quite powerful from what I can tell. I haven't flown with one, but I keep thinking about buying it for increased situational awareness...

In fact, Garmin a couple of days announced that they're releasing a GPSMAP 496 - which probably means prices for the 396 are going to come down in the near future! Check out the press release; it's mindblowing what you can get in a portable GPS nowadays.