Hello all... I said it then, and I'll say it now: not using a color display
was a major marketing mistake. Kick me off here if you want to, but...
given the major bucks these things cost, given their marginal performance
differences, I'd buy the IC-7800 in a heartbeat-over a monochrome
display-and I'll wager the majority of the chosen-customers in this
high-end market will vote (with their wallets) in the same way (my wallet
is-by necessity-abstaining, since dollars cannot vote in absentia.)
I buy things not because they LOOK better, but because they WORK better.
Yet, at this level of performance, there is very little difference between
choices, performance-wise. Certainly, in my own pre-purchase inspections, I
would LOOK at Ten Tec first, long, and hard. But I would look and compare
everyone else as well. Only a total dummy wouldn't. That monochrome display
is a deal-killer. I was told at the time I raised a lot of questions about
the display, that to go to a color display would have added $500 to the
price of the rig. I don't question the veracity of that statement-but with
entire color laptops down to $700, perhaps it needs reevaluating? Maybe
just add a VGA port? I used the phrase "deal-killer" very seriously...
monochrome is utterly NON-competitive.
IMHO, the OMNI VI was THAT much better than its competition, but nothing
top-of-the-line currently offered by anyone is much different from its
competition, RF-wise. The photons don't care whether it's my EFJ Ranger II
or my Argonaut II that 'made' them-much less a multi-thousand-dollar
whiz-bang. That leaves ergonomics and what I'll call 'other features'. Two
things stand out on the '7800: COLOR and dual-freq receive. Color has been
proven time and again in efficiency studies to improve the human-machine
interface-especially when the operator is tired or harried. The very
definition of contest-operating.
Time (and sales performance) will certainly tell.
73 Ed Tanton N4XY <n4xy@earthlink.net>
Ed Tanton N4XY
189 Pioneer Trail
Marietta, GA 30068-3466
website: http://www.n4xy.com
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