Just wanted to share my first impressions of the PMDG 737-800 after 19 flights in 12 days as I believe some are waiting for reviews of people who've spent money on this update and not getting it for free from PMDG in exchange for a positive review.

TL;DR: right plane for my needs in good quality but PMDG as a company frustrates me even more than prior to my purchase.

Context:
I've been a PMDG customer since FS2004 days and I've had the 747 in FS9 and P3D and the 737 in FS9, FSX, P3D and MSFS2020.
Also flew the Level-D 767 in FS9 and the Majestic Dash 8 in P3D and some freeware planes, mostly for a low budget start to check out new sims.
For each sim, I fly only just one or two differen aircraft models in order to really master the aircraft I fly and to save money.

Why is the PMDG 737-800 for MSFS2024 the first payware aircraft I've spent money on, even though PMDG is undoubtedly the worst company in terms of customer treatment and communication strategy I've ever known to exist in both the FS- and real world.

• I still prefer PFPX over simBrief for countless reasons, which allows me to export flightplans in .pln or .rte format and uplink it via the PMDG FMC. Fenix doesn't allow a flightplan uplink in the sim using those formats. You're forced to use simBrief, or doomed to entering every waypoint manually and I hate being nudged to something.
• Panel state saving and reloading. This is an essential feature for my type of flying and the Fenix Airbuses just don't have it.

If those two features were available in the Fenix A320, I wouldn't have spent a single moment considering buying the PMDG 737, as in every other aspect, the Fenix Buses seem to be far superior to the PMDG Boeings.

Now, what do I like and what do I dislike in the PMDG 737? Note, I compare many aspects with the freeware FBW A320 as this was the only other plane I flew in both MSFS2020 and 2024 aside of the 737.

Good:

• Cockpit texturing (no, I do not care about non high res texturing under the MCP)
• Cockpit sounds in general
• CPDLC and Hoppie integration for use with VATSIM is nice (and the only "notable" upgrade compared to the FS20 version)
• Customer Support is top class. I've had a couple bug reports and inquiries and I've received all replies with short notice (and this around the christmas/new year days!)
• Flight dynamics (as far as I can tell sitting at home in front of a PC without and hydraulics to move my chair).

Bad:

• Feeling scammed by PMDG every time I load that plane. RSR stated this is a "nEw bUiLd fRoM grOunD uP", but you have the exact same bugs in the FS24 version as were in FS20 too. Obvious lie then. Nothing new from PMDG.
  No, I don't wanna beat the dead horse here again about this "cup of coffee" farce as it was my very personal decision to buy the PMDG 737 for MSFS2024 and no one else is to blame here.
• 2 specific sounds: the super annoying one that sounds like a snow plow on asphalt when you make the slightest nose gear turn on ground and the highly unrealistic touchdown sound that every mainstream media aviation wannabe-documentation has, when the wheels touch down, but it's never heard in a real 737 from the cockpit. Unfortunately, in FSX or P3D, we were able to disable specific annoying sounds by just editing them with goldwave to a volume of 0 and you were good.
• They've removed the direct keyboard input feature for the FMC. In every PMDG edition I had, you were able to click on the FMC, then type whatever you want directly in your physical keyboard. They have removed this feature and I still can't think of any reason why it would be a good choice to remove it?! I mean, offensive initials not allowed?!
• Weird wobbling/oscillating of the plane around all axis on some flights. While having set turbulence to REALISTIC, I haven't had a single issue with it using the FBW A320 on 100+ flights in MSFS2024 but PMDG asks customers to dumb down turbulence effects to LOW. Tried this and flew into Vagar EKVG this morning with winds at 34031G47KT and it was like flying in CAVOK with low winds. Changed back to REALISTIC, 'cause I don't wanna land right in a North Atlantic storm and it doesn't even feel like the slightest challenge. Some reported switching YAW DAMPER to OFF resolves the yawing. Still need to test on my side to either confirm or oppose this statement.
• The EFB still has the same high latency as it had back in MSFS2020 (new built from ground up BS again). Every time you click something in the T/O or landing PERF section, you need to wait a second to respond or for context menus to close. Why do the freeware guys over at FBW manage to provide an EFB with 0 input lag and a seasoned flightsim company can't?
• No innovation. When I first flew the freeware FBW A320 in MSFS2020, I was blown away by what was possible in the sim. You could attach an external thermal printer and print out every ACARS message, PDC or METAR you've received in the sim. Or what about transferring the ingame EFB to a physical external tablet? Again, you were able to do so with the freeware A320.What a shame PMDG can't keep up with part-time hobby/freeware developers in that regard.
• Panel state saving feature is not saving COM1 and COM2. I've already reported this bug years ago (can't remember if it was in FS20 or even back in the P3D days) but the "new build from ground up" doesn't seem so new after all.

Conclusion:
I've paid 30USD to have an airliner in MSFS2024 that comes with a panel state saving function and the ability to use PFPX with it.
If those two things are not what you need in MSFS2024, don't buy the PMDG 737. Even 5 USD would be too much for it, in my opinion.
Every other payware aircraft dev manages to implement new features for the price of 0,00.
PMDG wants you to pay 30 USD for a version that has one major feature added (CPDLC integration), but one key feature removed (FMC keyboard input).

I'm really looking forward to the upcoming release of Justflight's F70/F100 and Bluebird's 757.
Fingers crossed, the 757 will be the gem it promises to be to not rely on PMDGs 747 for future long haul flying.

And here we go again.... 

I have friend who flew for American Airlines as captain all line of 737 from classic to NG to MAX. I rather listen to his take then confused simmer ! LOL This mini review is obviously very biased LOL 

About what sound you hear in the cockpit:

 

 

 

42 minutes ago, Konterhalbe said:

Just wanted to share my first impressions

Thank you very much for this review! 👍

Decent review and covers most things in a reasonable fashion. I agree that this is like a 7/10 plane. Decent but not exceptional. Yes I’m aware there’s no alternative. But if you compare to other top tier planes, this is clearly behind. 

18 minutes ago, JonathanC said:

I agree that this is like a 7/10 plane. Decent but not exceptional.

That's where I have it.  Decent (and by default the best 737NG rendition we have), but not earth shattering.  Still, reliable and good enough to be in my regular airliner rotation.

Fair review - thank you. 

for my money and for how often I fly it, it was a worthwhile upgrade just to get it running properly in v2024. 

it’s better than it was, and I’m not really interested enough in other airliners to worry about PMDG, esp since the cost to jump to anything “better” is significantly higher than the $30 for the 738  

I do intend to jump on the Fenix bus at some point soon, there’s just too much good news about that bird, esp of late. 

I’ll be doing a review similar to this in a few days. My review will be from the stand point of my opinions of the PMDG bird having logged a substantial amount of time in the real thing as a captain. 
 

This for whoever gives two poops about it lol

Interesting read about the new PMDG 737 NG -800, sprinkled with personal bits of likes and dislikes about the a/c, from a passionate simmer who has seen this NG from the earliest FS9 days…as I have too…

This review is perfectly fine here, as as long it is not meant for the PC Pilot magazine…🙂…

To me, the PMDG NG, in spite of any imperfections, has been and will be synonymous with the RW 737 that I’ve come to love, well before I even knew of (or travelled on) the A320. So, the Fenix cannot be a replacement for the PMDG.

Anyway, thanks for the effort to put together this account from your own experiences…always helpful to get a fresh perspective…🙂…

PMDG really brings all the interesting comments out.....

Its not even worth $5? you can't be serious.  Is it worth $30? Depends on how much you value $30 and how much use you get out of it..... But the idea that updating an airplane to a new sim should be free even though there are obvious updates is crazy to me.  is it great that other devs do it, sure! But I'm never going to judge anyone for charging for new work outside the scope of the previously released project.

I've only flown it a couple times in FS2024 but its frame rate friendly, and solid with good systems depth.  The idea that we should expect developers to work for free to bring things to a new sim is so crazy to me.  I hope that some of these people asking for a free upgrade have no problems working for free themselves.

1 hour ago, ahsmatt7 said:

I’ll be doing a review similar to this in a few days. My review will be from the stand point of my opinions of the PMDG bird having logged a substantial amount of time in the real thing as a captain. 
 

This for whoever gives two poops about it lol

I'd give some poops about it lol

51 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

I'd give some poops about it lol

Ryan, you’ve gone over to the Dark Side with that recent Fenix purchase. Can’t have you over here in Boeing land! 🤪

22 minutes ago, UrgentSiesta said:

Ryan, you’ve gone over to the Dark Side with that recent Fenix purchase. Can’t have you over here in Boeing land! 🤪

Yeah - I was actually kind of missing my 737-700 that I owned in 2020.  Airbus appears to be all about efficiency.  Boeing probably is too but I've found that the Airbus is mostly just like programming stuff to make it fly where you want.  The Boeing seems a little more hands on.  I still prefer the 737 FMS... it seems to make more sense to me.

55 minutes ago, ryanbatc said:

Yeah - I was actually kind of missing my 737-700 that I owned in 2020.  Airbus appears to be all about efficiency.  Boeing probably is too but I've found that the Airbus is mostly just like programming stuff to make it fly where you want.  The Boeing seems a little more hands on.  I still prefer the 737 FMS... it seems to make more sense to me.

The worst thing about the fenix is it makes everything else feel like a toy.  The textures, systems, sounds, flight model, ground handling, seamlessness of the efb and everything else, its just so polished.  I find the 737 has so much more character as an aircraft, its just more fun to operate but boy do I wish it was made by fenix instead of pmdg.  Ah well at least its not inibuilds.

Edited January 2Jan 2 by Pilot53

6 hours ago, JonathanC said:

Decent review and covers most things in a reasonable fashion. I agree that this is like a 7/10 plane. Decent but not exceptional. Yes I’m aware there’s no alternative. But if you compare to other top tier planes, this is clearly behind. 

The pmdg 737 is a good addon, but what bugs me most about them is they keep saying every version is a ground up rebuild when instead its the same code with a few more bug fixes.  The only thing that gets rebuilt is the 3d model from time to time.  Pmdg stopped innovating after their fsx ngx and fsx 777, you can still see that same code with some of the same bugs lives on in the current versions of their products.  Its amazing actually that what they built back then has been good enough to carry them forward and still compete with whats out today.  But id like to see them innovate with their systems again like they used to and similar to how fenix is with their products.  Anytime they are forced to build something new because of community pressure you see that they just cant handle it, eg. The flight tablet, pax cabin, etc.  It just turns into missed deadlines and false promises.  What ever happened to the pmdg tablet being this great thing we were going to see with all of these 3rd party integrations and you still cant even set the fuel or pax load with it on the 737. And im sorry but the texturing on the new 737 cabin looks awful and low res even compared to their own 777.  Sorry, rant over.

Edited January 2Jan 2 by Pilot53