This week feels like Christmas all over again. First Garmin ships me the new 4210, today they send me the new GMI 10, 3.5" NMEA2000 (N2K) Marine Display.
The new GMI 10 is Garmins recent effort to produce a multipurpose informational display. It has a color 3.5" display, a few buttons across the bottom, and a "look" like the rest of the new Marine Family of displays from Garmin like the 5212 or 4208.
First impressions - when I first opened the box from Garmin I though "Lucky me", being one of the first to get one of these (or a box full in my case). The GMI 10 comes packaged with a high quality plastic cover, similar to the other marine displays, and a full N2K network. It has the removable "silver" top and bottom trim piece which makes flush mount the unit from the front a breeze. Thats right, everything you need to build a N2K network is right in the box. The construction of the display is heavy and feels high quality. It has a 4" round area on the back to make it easily fit into 4" holes you might already have on your dash. The back of the display has a port for N2K (just like any N2K device has) and a port for the included power/data cable.
You are probably wondering why the power cable does data too since this is a N2K device. Well...it also does NMEA0183. The GMI 10 is able to receive data from 1 other NMEA0183 device. It will display this data on the screen but it will not pass it through the device in either NMEA0183 or N2K format. This will be useful in legacy applications, for example where you might want a repeater display for your Garmin 3210 (which is not NMEA2000), or any brand of NMEA0183 device. Of course if you do this the GMI 10 will "show up" your 3210 and make you feel compelled to upgrade...
What next - I had a few minutes to set up an operational N2K network this morning, been meaning to do it for a while. Setting up a NMEA2000 network really does just take a few minutes. Since I am a seasoned pro I was able to do it in 1 minute and 58 seconds! I connected the included Yellow N2K Power Cable to my 12V power supply, connected that to a N2K T, then connected 2 more T's. One for the GMI-10 and one for a 5212 we have on display. I then stuck the terminators included with the GMI-10 on each end of the network. Easy enough right? It really is that easy.
Next I powered up the 5212 and GMI-10 in no particular order. Whoa momma, the GMI-10 display was as bright as the 5212 display. Make no mistake, I am a junky for this N2K stuff, and I was a bit disappointed when I found out Garmin's screen was only going to be 3.5", but what they lack in screen size they make up for in brightness. I have have tested all the screens currently available, this little Garmin GMI-10 is incredibly bright. Here it is compared to a Northstar M84 that happened to be mounted nearby.
Speaking of screen brightness, the GMI-10 has a feature called "network sharing". Alledgedly this will maintain the screen brightness of one unit across the network. I did not hook up 2 GMI-10's to test this but I could not get it to work with the 5212 it was hooked to via NMEA2000. So either I am doing something wrong or this feature is strictly for the small instruments and not the big displays.
Next I played around with it. I found the menu system very intuitive and had it pretty well figured out in a minute or two. The screen is very customizable, you can split it up into 1-4 sections. Once you have your desired pages created pushing on one of the arrow buttons will cycle you to the next page. Below are screen shots of various pages.
There are probably 400 other pics I could post of data layouts, the ones above are just what gets cycled through when the store demo is running.
The future expandability of this display is endless. All new marine electronics coming down the block will be N2K enabled. So this will interface with any other N2K device. In fact in building my NMEA2000 network for this review I used a 2' cable from Maretron and a T from Lowrance. Garmin has a whole pile of N2K stuff coming out including a Fuel Flow sensor for Gas engines which we just got a pile of, depth/temp transducers which will plug right into the network, and other manufacturers already have engine sensors, weather sensors, heading sensors, and whatever else. If you haven't jumped on the N2K bandwagon now is a good time to start.
In general I am exceedingly pleased with this device. Garmin has hit another homerun. The only thing I would like to see is a bigger screen, but that is easily remedied by adding a 2nd display. The MSRP on these is $535, street price much less.
Garmin GMI-10 N2K Display Just Released - Review 
