I've been using a Garmin GPSmap 295 for about ten years and really like the solid yellow color of land and blue color of water. The contrast makes map details like airports, VORs, roads, airspace boundaries, etc., very easy to see even on the small LCD screen.

When I recently purchased my AMD 601XLi-B with a panel mounted GPSmap 396, I was looking forward to using its additional features. I found that the terrain shading makes map details very difficult to see because of poor contrast between land and water as well as airspace boundary overlays.

The 396 owner's manual doesn't seem to have instructions for turning off terrain shading, so I emailed Garmin support asking if there might be a way to make the display look more like the 295's with land mass a solid yellow color.

I received a prompt reply saying the terrain shading can be turned off:

"This will be due to the extra terrain database that the 396 provides. You can turn this option off and it will display land as all one solid color. On my 396 here it looks like a tan color. In order to do this go to the map page and select menu > scroll over to Map Tab > Turn Terrain Shading Off. I hope that helps."

This makes a huge difference for me in terms of map detail legibility, and I thought other 396 users might like to know this option exists.

Stan