I have just getting interested in this hobby after a long while off and I am blown away by these new scanners where all you have to do is it enter your zip or let the gps detect the frequencies for you. Much like when I first saw frequencies listed on the internet.
For the old school guys that used to buy crystals or the police call betty bearcat books at radio shack.... when upgrading scanners, did you or are you going to go with these plug and play models or stick with manual (or USB enabled) entry?
That could be a very difficult question to answer.
How much time are you willing to invest in the learning curve? Uniden and GRE both offer scanners that require very little time to learn about. The biggest problem with them from my point of view is deciding what you DON'T want to listen to. As for the Data Base offered here and thus in the two scanners mentioned; while it is indeed impressive it is by no means complete or comprehensive. But it is a good way to get started from scratch.
Other scanners require more time to learn about, but with the advent of programming software and the Data Base offered here, it doesn't take long to get up to speed.
What does take time, is setting the scanner up to have the data organized in a way that is meaningful and useful to you. Even though I've owned scanners since 1973, I am on a weekly basis changing things in my scanner (BCD396XT). Mostly I add things; sometimes I delete things. But I am constantly changing things to imporve the ease of use of my scanner.
So rather then ask which scanner they are going to use, it would be better to ask, "How much TIME are you willing to invest in learning about your scanner and your communitys radio systems?".
Just my random thoughts on the matter...
Wayne...