Electronics
Greg - As Ed mentioned, you'll be able to 'daisy-chain' your instruments as you add in the future. This is great, and may save $$ as well as eliminating clutter, but if my understanding of the thing is correct, in order to do this you're limited to one family or brand of gear. Apparently different manufacturers use different "languages" and a component from one may not be able to "talk" to components from other manufacturers despite their all being advertised as meeting the same NMEA interface standard. Check this out. One big consideration for me would be the availability of customer support for whatever you buy. If you buy only on the basis of price, say from a big-box outlet or some budget mail-order source, it is very unlikely that you'll ever get any intelligent advice should you run into problems or have questions. True, all the manufacturers offer on-line or phone-in tech. support, but if my recent experience with a Magellan GPS is an example, some of this "support" doesn't amount to much except advertising copy. Magellan didn't answer my e-mails and phone inquiries were answered by a heavily accented voice that I suspect originated from a call center in India and, more importantly, couldn't seem to understand my questions, let alone answer them. Very frustrating.
