You're right Jay, it IS apples to oranges. The 430W will allow you to do GPS/VOR/LOC/BC/ILS approaches, communicate, and fly airways without a NAV backup. These are the reasons to get a 430. The 696 can do none of these so they are catering to different purposes (but not necessarily different sub-markets since IFR pilots will fly both IFR and VFR).
The 696 has a lot of cool stuff but IMO, it does not provide that "breakthrough" feature that was not available in other portables. FliteCharts are the big "new" feature with the size of the screen a close second. What made the others such a compelling buy was the addition of game-changing stuff like the virtual six (really five) pack (196), Terrain (296), Weather (396/496). Each of these features required either thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars to have in your cockpit prior to these portables (or at the very least a spaghetti full of wires). You could get the chart feature in a number of different tablet PCs so while it's an improvement, it's not as big as the others were. The new weather features are good too but again, not a huge breakthrough.
The size however, could hinder sales somewhat because let's face it, our cockpits aren't the roomiest places. Mounting the 696 will require an entirely empty stack on your panel and my guess is that very few aircraft have that luxury these days. That leaves the yoke. In that case, the size might be detrimental as well. But as a replacement for your charts, it might be an acceptable swap to take up all that real estate on that yoke in front of you. Hey, it may even provide incentive to go on that diet!
This could be a big seller regardless and I hope it is for the sake of my Garmin stock (ouch, I shouldn't even go there--it hurts just to think about it!). Garmin got good wood on the ball but whether it's a double or a home run remains to be seen.
Marco
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