Topic: 898 Upgrad

[Stumpy]

In the next few months I'm looking at upgrading my 858 to a 898si. Being in Australia, what is the diadvantages if I purchased one from the USA in regards to settings, navionic charts, warranty etc . Mark

[Enufzed]

Hi Stumpy,
Because there is only one importer in Oz if you had a warranty issue you would have to send it back to the States for repair and the postage is an arm and a leg. it would have the old Imperial measurements and not metric if bought O/S. (i could live with that) Twice the price here as compared to USA but I believe the warranty here is 2 years . Navioics maps are avaialble for Australia & NZ but as far as I know no Lakemaster maps for Oz. I bought my 898cx Si from Anglers Warehouse Tweed Heads who did me a great deal as I shop there regularly.
This forum is the very place place for info !!!!!!!!! and Doug V Tips & Tricks DVDs.

[flatcat_auz]

I bought a 798cxiHD in Australia last year for $1274. They today still retail for $1300+. If I was looking today I would buy the 898 from the states for the same price. .
Well when I bought my unit and got home I rang whitworths and made a dickhead of myself. I told them that I had the american unit as there was no "x" on the unit simple 798SIHD. Well the "X" is on the spec sticker on the exterior of the box.......
I had the BLA/Humminbird rep (importers) at the recent sydney boatshow try and tell me the the Australian units are built to Australian specifications. What bullshit. It is the software in the unit that determines feet/meters, Fahrenheit/Celsius not hardware. If you insert an Australian navionics card it would read in meters. From my understanding the only thing is temp, everything else is the same.

And the money you save certainly covers the cost of sending the unit back to the US is something does go wrong. Admittedly you do get 2yrs in Australia compared to one in the states.

[Humminbird_Greg]

Not the question that was originally asked but units sold outside of the U.S.A. have to meet additional requirements that domestic (U.S.A.) units do not.  C-Tick and CE are two such compliances along with REACH and ROHAS (I may have some of those named incorrectly).

Operational differences in domestic and International units include available: measurement systems, languages, time zones and what base maps are loaded into the unit.  Warranties may also differ.

[flatcat_auz]

As stated above the US units work in Australia and the only differences are metric/feet, Celsius/Fahrenheit and warranty. I'm sick to death of foreign companies jacking up the price due to location. For example here in Australia Apple Itunes songs retail $2.99 yet in the US is 99c and Microsoft and adobe also geofence their products and jack up prices.

News flash business people, technology is making the world a smaller place and due to these advances the tyranny of distance cannot be a justifiable reason to hike up prices.