1 minute ago, Farlis said:

If I want to fly just any route I take out the BBJ or fly the Citation. 😉

aw c'mon, fly a Southwest 737 out of Rome.  see if you can let yourself do it.  it'll be fun.

2 minutes ago, ShawnG said:

aw c'mon, fly a Southwest 737 out of Rome.  see if you can let yourself do it.  it'll be fun.

Over my cold dead body!

 I did fly Southwest out of ATL, JAX and BWI today. Final destination ORD. 😉

Favourite was probably the 600, but since I am only really interested in Cargo & BBJ the 700 will probably do me....

 

G

1 hour ago, Farlis said:

It totally depends on where you do most of your flying. If you fly in the U.S. there are more than enough routes to fly the 700 on.

If you fly in Europe the 800 is the one to wait for.

Not to rag on anyone who wants to be as authentic to rl as possible when choosing a version to fly, no one is going to kick your door down and confiscate your computer if you decide to use a different variant to fly a route.

Mark

 

5 minutes ago, Gate99 said:

Not to rag on anyone who wants to be as authentic to rl as possible when choosing a version to fly, no one is going to kick your door down and confiscate your computer if you decide to use a different variant to fly a route.

Mark

 

It's the only viable answer to the question which version to get. Because if you take that out of the equation, then it doesn't matter at all which airframe one gets. In that case I would even suggest the 600. That was the Aircraft I used for Aerosoft's Round the World Roundtrip a few years ago. It can get you in and out of virtually any airfield.

1 hour ago, ShawnG said:

It's just a slight version of OCD, and I'm not criticizing anyone, I got my issues as well, but I find it fascinating that it's just sort of assumed that we all can't fly a pretend airplane if it isn't exactly mimicking a real world flight.  Love it.

Agree entirely with this.  I usually look for Vatsim controllers first, and a length of flight (usually short) that I want to do next. I always sim under the same callsign for simplicity.  So, I've taken Alaska 121 on routes that make no sense; maybe Burlington, VT to JFK for instance.

Was it a FCF?  A divert recovery?  Or maybe it was just fun ;).

To the original point though, if you do want to at least partially mimic real-world use, the -700 is probably the best "bang for the buck" of the 737 NG variants.  With the PMDG version, you get an airline -700, a freighter, and a BBJ.  The airliner can be used to perform any 737 NG flight in the world; it has the best performance and range of the family.  The freighter is self explanatory, and the BBJ can go halfway around the world if you want to do some long-haul flying in a familiar platform.

Basically, the -700 can do it all. 

Many thanks for the replies.  Good to see some different views.

This has helped.  I think I'll wait till they're all out, then take a view.  I have zero interest in flying "real" flights so in the end the 600, as the cheapest, might well win out.

Cheers.

My favorite is the -900. The others look like midgets or dwarves. 

900's the ugliest of them all IMO. Like a stretched piece of Taffy.

I already have the -700 but not having the EFB Tablet is a real bummer and I actually find myself going back to the FBW A320NX.  I also really hate the camera system on the PMDG 737.  I want to set a custom camera I can pan around in, but instead I'm stuck with static wing views.  Southwest still has 400+ -700s so that will do for my southwest flying.  I'll buy the -800 for Ryanair Europe routes and I'll be done.  

-600 doesn't even fly anymore (there are literally only 19 left flying for Janet, Tunisair, Air Algiers and Flightcraft and half of those are parked and about to be scrapped.)  So I'm not sure why PMDG is wasting their time with this... My thought is they are biding time to analyze -700 sales.

only 500  or so -900s were ever made.  Plus, the -900s run long routes which is not something I do and... Many of the 900 routes also have  -800 flying the route in the mid day. 

I only care to fly BBJ variants so 700 for me.

I couldn't NOT buy the 700, just because I so missed flying any of the 737's. I for sure will buy the 800, maybe the 900, but likely not, and probably not the 600. Worse-comes-to-worse I'll have no problem flying an 800 on a 900 route.

800 and Max.

seems to be a money grab to charge full price for other standalone versions when the main differences are just going to be model changes, liveries, and some flight model adjustment . especially since fenix will be putting out winglets and a new engine model in their a320 for free later on .