It appears Raymarine has scheduled a premiere of their G-Series product line right at the same time as Furuno's launch of NavNet 3D during the Fort Lauderdale Boat Show.
Both exhibitions are set for Wednesday night at exactly the same time. I've been told Raymarine will have a boat decked out with the new system available for sea trials. It's all invitation only and Raymarine won't be showing G-Series in their regular booth. So it's more of a "soft" launch, probably designed to take a little wind out of the NavNet 3D sails.
Regardless, I heard rumblings about the G-Series maybe two years ago, so it's been a long time in the works and will eventually fill the white space where E-Series isn't robust enough and bigger monitors are desired.
G-Series will be the more powerful black-box version of E-Series, likely with improved entertainment and video integration, as well as improved PC/Raytech software features. The monitors are already available and are very nice, albeit expensive.
I'm told Raymarine should have ST70 instruments (pricing and descriptions are now up on Raymarine's website for ST70) on display in their booth, so we'll have something new to gaze at.
Interesting. I think Raymarine is going to have to do some serious work to recapture the minds of boaters in my area, many of whom are quite disillusioned with Raymarine as a company. I had an E120 and found it's performance terrible, and their support less than stellar (especially when compared to Furuno).Â
 In the past, a boaters decision of what plotter to buy was strongly influenced by the charts they preferred to use. Having used both, I find the Navionics more seamless and easier to look it, but I find the C-Map much more accurate and uncluttered (I just don't like the way they stitch the charts together, but I understand why they do it).
 If Raymarine stays with Navionics Platinum chips on the G series, I think that will be a very limiting move. I've heard that Navnet3 will use vector and raster charts right from Hydrographic services. I hope that it will read C-Map charts also (but don't know). The availability of these S57 and raster charts will likely give Furuno an edge as most people I hear from prefer them. I haven't really seen any for my area so can't comment from experience yet.
 In addition to the E120, I have a Navnet 2, which I thought didn't have all the bells and whistles but would be reliable and accurate. I have always insisted on a Furuno unit on board because I feel confident it will work, and if I have a problem or question, excellent support is just a phone call away. Â
 I had one problem with my Navnet 2 last year, just 2 days before my vacation on the boat. Furuno Fedex'd a replacement unit overnight and asked that I return the old unit AFTER I get back from vacation. I had a number of problems with my E120, which Raymarine told me to mail it back to them (at my expense) and they would endeavour to get it back to me within 3 weeks. If you were me, which company would have impressed you?
 Radar is another area that I think Raymarine needs serious work on. Their radars are okay, but nothing compared to the existing Furuno for definition and use in foul weather. I compared 2kw domes from both and in really bad rain, I could still make out targets on the Navnet radar, where I could not tune the RM to get anything. Maybe this is a problem with the operator more than the equipment, but how many of us pleasure boaters are Coast Guard or Navy quality radar operators? Â
I don't fish, so can't begin to compare the fishfinders of both companies.
The last thing I can comment on is price. RM prices are excessive. the Monitors on their C and E series machines are very fragile. The Navnet monitors are more durable in my experience. If I were to buy a really expensive marine monitor (I know they're all expensive), I'd want it to be durable. I think that many would agree that it is more likely the Furuno monitor would outlast the RM, just based on the other products they sell. Add to that, the Furuno monitors are less expensive.
The only thing that I think that Furuno really should do with their Navnet 3d unit is to create a how to video similar to what Raymarine has done. Most people won't read the instructions or understand them. The video would be a good idea to get people more familiar with what the Navnet can do. (I would have loved a video like this for the Navnet 2, but the manual is good and I called tech support for clarification or education on anything I didn't understand).
Thanks for the response. It seems like conventional wisdom that Furuno makes the best radar and sounders. There is no doubt their radar is, and always has been, great but when compared to Raymarine's products this is almost always unfairly recited as gospel. I think much of that opinion is left over from Raymarine's previous incarnation as Raytheon and the products they built. Furuno's 1942mkII CRT radar was/is the best stand alone recreational radar I've ever used. I think many would agree. It was introduced when Raytheon had it's XX series on the market. The comparable radar to the 1942mkII would have been the R41XX. Although the 1942mkII was a 6kW unit and the R41XX was 4kW, the screen size and antennas would be close enough to call them apples to apples. Well the 1941mkII blew the Raytheon radar away for picture quality. As Furuno always had a great reputation, especially with commercial users, this sort of cemented the opinion that Furuno radar was just plain better.
When multifunction displays became the new thing and Raymarine's C-Series and Furuno's Navnet I systems came out, I think this opinion stuck in the minds of consumers. I think this was unfair to Raymarine. Raymarine was now a new company with brand new products.Â
The C-Series had two things going for it over NavNet 1, the chart plotter was leaps and bounds better than NavNet 1 and Raymarine's monitor was better. The better monitor really helped the radar picture on the C-Series, or more to the point, Furuno's poor graphics diminished the quality of an otherwise great radar. I think if tuned properly either radar looked pretty good, but Furuno didn't necessarily stand out anymore.
So now you looked at the plotters and Raymarine's graphics and ease of use, for me anyway, put C-Series over the top. Not much changed between NN2 and E-Series, either.
As for Navnet 3 and G-Series charts, Furuno will use some combo of C-Map Max Pro/Nobeltec charts so your desire for S57 will will be in there. G-Series, I really don't know yet, but I hope they incorporate a stabile version of Raytech software and also use a raster/vector Transys chart library. Unless they really beef up their processors and graphics on G-Series, the Navionics Platinum charts just aren't all that impressive in the current models.
Glad you like using instructional videos, I wrote and produced three of them for the C/E-Series and it was a fun experience that I hope taught some people something about their equipment.
Finally, the President of Raymarine was a disgruntled Raymarine customer before he even worked there and as the story goes, he told his wife that one day he would run the company and fix all the quality control and customer service issues he was facing on his own boat. I do know that quality control is his number one priority. The manufacturing transition from England to Hungary didn't help, but will in the long run both on price and quality.
Hey, it's Ford vs. Chevy all over again, no one is necessarily right about their preferences they just know what they like.
Jeff
Wow, you did those videos? They were very well done. I hope you think about doing one for the new Navnet 3.
Using the E series radar and the NN2 radar side by side, I find the NN2 radar better. I like the options and performance on the Furuno. I find the ARPA on the NN2 works much better, in my experience.
I've also had better luck with Furuno support than RM support.
I certainly will look at the G series. Ialso want to see what Simrad has to offer.Â