Navman Tracker 5600 vs. Si-Tex ColorMax 6

The Navman 5600 screen has been improved, and its controls are good, but the Si-Tex machine outshines it in most important areas, including sunlight viewability and price.

The Si-Tex ColorMax 6 (left) and Navman Tracker 5600 (right) are faced into strong sunlight here. From both head-on and side angles, the Si-Tex screen is significantly brighter. The Navman, however, is not advertised as a direct-sunlight machine, and we found its controls a bit simpler to use.

In our never-ending quest to keep up with changes in the marine electronics world, we've recently taken to publishing evaluations of one or two devices at a time, rather than try to round up half a dozen or more units and evaluate them all at the same time. There are two reasons for this. First, it lets us spend more quality time with each unit, and report on it in greater depth. Second, it often happens that by the time we round up a whole bunch of similar gizmos, test them, and publish the results, at least one of those units will have been discontinued, replaced by a new model,…