I have some experience with Garmin and Avidyne/Garmin but none with Aspen products.  So, I don’t know how they are different from either a functional or capability perspective.  Can someone help me understand what the difference is between the first two and Aspen?  I mean, why is there such a huge price difference?

Having only flown a couple of times behind an Aspen, I’m not an expert.  I did find it harder to use than the Garmin, but I attribute that to my deep experience with Garmin products.  I do know that the Aspen is much more flexible for older installations, but it’s limited to installation on aircraft under 6,000 pounds.  That has to play a factor, right?  Garmin also is quite a bit bigger.  Finally, Garmin is, well, Garmin.  They’ve got a solid reputation and people pay their prices while Aspen is still trying to make it. 

Aviation Consumer had a good write up: http://www.aspenavionics.com/pdfs/Aviation-Consumer-Aspen-Garmin-Glass_0511.pdf

Interesting article.  At first read, it appears the attraction to the Aspen is redundancy.  I’d consider that more important than some of the other positives Garmin offers.

I also noted SVT is half the price on the G600 than on the G1000.  Garmin could sell a whole lot more hardware if they didn’t price the same product on a scaled basis.  Said another way, I won’t buy Garmin upgrades to my G1000 because of their price model.