Major Price Drop for GPS Units

Hmmmm... this might be a viable option. I'm currently in the market for the Garmin Nuvi. They've been coming down in price considerably as well.



I had a chance to use my friend's Nuvi and absolutely loved it.



-Mike
 
I picked up the Garmin 330 recently and I love it. Its everything I could have asked for in a unit. The price was like $305 shipped almost 2 months ago. If you shop around you can get one alot cheaper now.
 
Since more and more manufacturers are offering OEM versions of GPS unites built into cars as an option or as a standard I have a feeling this is only the beginning of the price drop for the aftermarket units.

You are seeing the same thing in car stereo as well. The OEM systems that come in cars today are a far cry from those of just 5 or 6 years ago, this is hurting the aftermarket stereo industry and as a result the prices are dropping on things like speakers and amplifiers etc. I just picked up a new Eclipse amp 100 x 4 for like $300 and change. The same amp 5 years ago would have run at least $500, probably more.

If they are starting to drop the prices on things like the TomTom I am sure the other manufacturers are just one or two steps behind.
 
I think the recent price drops have little, if anything, to do with OEM GPS/Nav units. There's a market for both in-dash and portable units and at the moment, the majority of people do not have navigation. If I had to guess a reason why there's a recent price drop, it's probably because a new model is going to be released soon. I'm not sure what map the TomTom uses, but Garmin uses the City Navigator North America dvd and that was released April 2006, so I'm assuming version 9 for North America will be coming out shortly. Garmin just also released few new models, including the upgrade to the highly reviewed 660, so that could be another reason for the TomTom price cut.



My wife bought me the Garmin 660 this past Xmas and I have to say there are pros/cons to both portable unit such as this and an in-dash navigation, but the pros far outweighs the cons. The Garmin is so freaking easy to use, you don't have to use any manual. It's self-explanatory pretty much. It's a device that anyone can pick up and use right away without having to read any instructions. Try using some OEM navigation and you'll appreciate some of these portable units. I'm pretty tech savvy and even then, I can't figure out some of these OEM navigations on the first try.
 
I've considered retrofitting a factory GPS unit into my car, I still think it would be a nice upgrade. Problem is, with the expected major highway construction projects around here over the next couple of years I REALLY want a unit that can do traffic updates, which means I have to go aftermarket. That's part of the flexibility of aftermarket; getting the features you want. Not to mention that you can take it from one car to another.
 
Velobard, why not get something like the Avic D3? It's a double din sized unit and offers XMNavTraffic, although I would check out beforehand if they have service in your area.



IMO, traffic updates are still in its infant stages and there's big room for improvement. It's a nice feature, but I wouldn't let it stop you from a purchase. I've never been to Kirkwood, MO but I'm willing to bet money that your highway systems are no where near as complicated as Southern California. It works OK in SoCal because we have plenty of roads and highways that we can use as alternate routes. If you're in a town where there's only a few main highways and a few main roads, it won't be as much help because your alternate route will probably be just as bad as your main route. In Hawaii, that's how their traffic is and even though L.A. has the worst traffic, I found Hawaii's traffic almost more annoying than ours.
 
That's not a bad suggestion Black, but if I switched to a non-factory head unit I'd lose my steering wheel controls and i'm rather fond of them. No, the highway system around St Louis isn't nearly as bad as LA, but we're going to be blessed with a special form of torture for the next couple of years. If you look at a map of the St Louis area you'll see that 40/64 is the central east-west highway through town. It's way overdo for some major work and they've decided to completely rebuild the highway through town, including new interchanges. They decided the "best" way to do this is to completely close several miles, half of the project, at once, then when that's finished to completely close the other half of the project. In other words, with only a couple of possible highway alternatives, the vast majority of the traffic is going to be forced onto already crowded surface streets. I don't expect to find a painless way to deal with it, I'm just hoping to find the least painful and to avoid major surprises that are bound to pop up. For most of what I need to do I can probably just take 44 (along the basic route of old Route 66), but it's going to be strained as well.
 
ahh, the steering wheel controls.. I can see how you wouldn't want to lose that. I wouldn't want that either.



as far as traffic updates, I'm not 100% sure about XMNavTraffic, but I believe they don't update or provide info on surface streets. Now that would be really handy.
 
IMO I would go with a portable gps over in dash unit because if your car ever breaks down you can bring it with you in a rental, if you are taking a road trip in a friend' scar you can bring it along, etc. The tomtom one you can even use while walking around on foot. With an in dash unit there are no other options.
 
Ctowner said:
IMO I would go with a portable gps over in dash unit because if your car ever breaks down you can bring it with you in a rental, if you are taking a road trip in a friend' scar you can bring it along, etc. The tomtom one you can even use while walking around on foot. With an in dash unit there are no other options.
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you have valid points and those are some of the reasons why I love my portable unit. But at the same time, there are some things about the built in nav systems that are also better than the portable units.



The biggest advantage the built in navigation systems have over the portable units is the amount of POI (point of interests) stored. There are many places that my nuvi 660 cannot find that frustrates me, because some of these places are big and well known. The best example I have is Cerritos Auto Square. If you live in SoCal, chances are you know or have heard about Cerritos Auto Square as its one of the largest auto mall. To the nuvi, this place doesn't exist and on the map, it doesn't exist either other than a large, empty space.



Also, on the nuvi sometimes when you search for a POI it takes forever for the results to come up. On the other hand, with built in navigation sometimes a lot of the work is done on the fly. IE, if you're looking up something on Washington street, as you type in each letter of the word w-a-s-h-i-n-g-t-o-n, it automatically eliminates letters that the system knows will not be in any of the streets in its database. So if you typed in the letter W, the system will automatically not let you type in a Q after it, because no street is going to start with WQ.



I also find the voices on built in navigation systems to be a lot more pleasant and realistic. On the portable units, the voices in general sound robotic or computerized. I also hate how mine says "recalculating" every time I don't follow its instruction. With some built in navs, it just spits out the next direction without telling you it's recalculating. It feels much more human. With the newer built in navigations, some also take into consideration the street you prefer and calculates that into the route. Some systems bother you constantly just because you'd rather stay on street A than street B, even though you know both streets can get you to the same place.



Both type of GPS has their strengths and weaknesses. For most people, I would say a portable unit is better. But if you want the best navigation possible and you don't care about portability from one car to another, then a built in nav system will be better because not only will you have the most amount of POIs stored in the database, it will also be completely integrated. Who wouldn't want to have one system that completely controls their nav, radio, sat, and iPod in one?



My advice though for anyone looking into getting a portable unit is to get one with Bluetooth. This feature is worth the price alone. You can purchase seperate bluetooth systems for a couple hundred bucks that won't even have the features the built in bluetooth on your portable GPS will have. I can do a search for a restaurant, and once the system finds it I can have it place a call to book a reservation or something. I've found the Bluetooth feature to be really handy.
 
I believe TOMTOM is reducing prices on the ONE because of the rumored new ONE XL coming soon. Supposedly a widescreen version of the regular ONE model, with possibly more features. Not a lot is known about the XL just yet, as most of the known details leaked from the FCC. And, I'll bet they will add greater functionality to the rest of the Tomtom models, which is why they are reducing those prices.



Plus, this technology is like everything else. When the technology is new-er, prices remain high, but as time goes by, prices fall like a rock. DVD players are a prime example. I remember a basic DVD player was like $400-$500 a few years ago, and now you can get a DVD unit better than those for under $100. I think GPS will be the same way.



I am in the market for a portable GPS unit, and am considering the Tomtom ONE, NAVMAN F20, or possibly the Garmin Nuvi 200. I don't need MP3 players and all that crap they are adding to these things just to jack up the prices. I just want a basic, no frills, but good quality nav device. So far, in the tons of reviews I've read through, it seems the ONE is nearly the perfect unit, except for the TeleAtlas mapping data. Although, I hear TA is looking to make strong updates to their maps very soon, which could make the product as good or better than the NAVTEQ competitor, which Garmin uses currently.
 
I never had a chance to play with one of these units, but I use my verizon phone with it's gps. I pay $9.99 a month for the service and it has been amazing.
 
I believe in the future, cell phone GPS might get a lot more popular because I've read they're developing technology where the GPS units communicate with one another. And being that your cell phone is always with you while you're driving, it can provide instant traffic updates by talking to other cell phone GPS units and so all the combined GPS units talking to one another will have more accurate info than what the current TMC Traffic or XMTraffic can provide. Of course for this to work you'd have to have an established user base.
 
TigerMike said:
I believe TOMTOM is reducing prices on the ONE because of the rumored new ONE XL coming soon. Supposedly a widescreen version of the regular ONE model, with possibly more features. Not a lot is known about the XL just yet, as most of the known details leaked from the FCC. And, I'll bet they will add greater functionality to the rest of the Tomtom models, which is why they are reducing those prices.



So far, in the tons of reviews I've read through, it seems the ONE is nearly the perfect unit, except for the TeleAtlas mapping data. Although, I hear TA is looking to make strong updates to their maps very soon, which could make the product as good or better than the NAVTEQ competitor, which Garmin uses currently.
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Interesting news about the TomTom XL I’ll have to look into that further. Since you are looking for a GPS unit and you have no desire for Bluetooth and MP3 player, The TomTom ONE will be perfect for you. Obviously from all the reviews you read you know it is a quality unit and the price right now is almost too good to be true.



You shouldn't be concerned with Tele Atlas maps because they already had their MAJOR update. This past December they corrected their maps for North America. I'm sure that TA will be updating them again soon but this past update was important. IMHO their maps are now just as good if not better than Navteq





BlackElantraGT

Both type of GPS has their strengths and weaknesses. For most people, I would say a portable unit is better. But if you want the best navigation possible and you don't care about portability from one car to another, then a built in nav system will be better because not only will you have the most amount of POIs stored in the database, it will also be completely integrated. Who wouldn't want to have one system that completely controls their nav, radio, sat, and iPod in one?
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I agree with your point about the POIs but in terms of integration there are portable GPS units that can connect your phone, iPod, and to your unit. Also some portable units like the GO 910 have an FM transmitter to so you can play your MP3s saved on your GPS unit on your car stereo. Point is I still think that portable units have a fair amount of integration.



BlackElantraGT

I believe in the future, cell phone GPS might get a lot more popular because I've read they're developing technology where the GPS units communicate with one another. And being that your cell phone is always with you while you're driving, it can provide instant traffic updates by talking to other cell phone GPS units and so all the combined GPS units talking to one another will have more accurate info than what the current TMC Traffic or XMTraffic can provide. Of course for this to work you'd have to have an established user base.
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Wow this is great! One of the big reasons I go online and chat on message boards is learn the latest technological advances and this traffic update scenario is absolutely fascinating! And I think that a 'user base' would could easily be created there are more than enough GPS junkies out there (such as myself)!
 
Ctowner said:
Interesting news about the TomTom XL I’ll have to look into that further. Since you are looking for a GPS unit and you have no desire for Bluetooth and MP3 player, The TomTom ONE will be perfect for you. Obviously from all the reviews you read you know it is a quality unit and the price right now is almost too good to be true.
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Yeah, I think the Tomtom One will be just right for me. I will probably pick one up next month for my b-day, and it will come in very handy for our family trip to Disney in June. Garmin's Nuvi line looks nice too, but personally, I think they are overpriced for what they offer. Garmin needs to be more price competitive, IMO.



Crutchfield is the only retailer so far that I have seen getting ready to sell the One XL... TomTom ONE XL Portable car navigator at Crutchfield.com
 
As much as I like the Nuvi 350, it's "STILL" overpriced IMO so I may look into the TomTom One... Like some of you, I just want a slim, no frills GPS unit with excellent "Recalculate Route" capabilities.



If that's the one thing I enjoyed about borrowing my friend's Nuvi 350, it was the recalculate feature. Anyone want to chime in on how well TomTom's recalc feature works?



Thanks,

Mike
 
If any of you live near a Fry's Electronics and was in the market for a small, low priced GPS unit, they're having a 2 day only sale (yesterday and today) on the Nuvi 360 for $400 after a $200 instant price cut from $599



According to froogle.com the next cheapest place wants about $488 for the same unit. Even after Circuit City's $150 price cut, it's still $550.



This deal was in the Los Angeles Times, so it may not be applicable to Fry's outside of SoCal.



At $400, this is an awesome price because it basically has all the features of my 660 (minus the 4.3 in widescreen). And if you've never seen a Nuvi in person, they're truly pocket size. Mine is smaller than most paperbacks.
 
BlackElantraGT said:
If any of you live near a Fry's Electronics and was in the market for a small, low priced GPS unit, they're having a 2 day only sale (yesterday and today) on the Nuvi 360 for $400 after a $200 instant price cut from $599



According to froogle.com the next cheapest place wants about $488 for the same unit. Even after Circuit City's $150 price cut, it's still $550.



This deal was in the Los Angeles Times, so it may not be applicable to Fry's outside of SoCal.



At $400, this is an awesome price because it basically has all the features of my 660 (minus the 4.3 in widescreen). And if you've never seen a Nuvi in person, they're truly pocket size. Mine is smaller than most paperbacks.
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:bow Thanks for the tip! Just got one at my local Fry's (NorCal)... one more thing to play with... when will my car get some attention?



-Mike
 
I love the text-to-speech function. For me, the best voice is the female Australian accent. I find both male and female American English voices too "computer" or robotic sounding for me. I get a laugh at hearing it pronounce some of the Spanish streets. It's so "gringo" LOL. But for Hawaii folks, text to speech is pointless because 99% of the streets are mispronounced :)



Now, if only someone can find a way to hack the 660 and make it a 680 (pretty much the same unit except with MSN Direct)
 
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