Fletch

In the land of the blind, a one eye man is king.
Most consumers are not aware of the many different make and models of GPS units currently available, and they are the same consumers that probably do not do much research on the Internet before purchasing one.
They take the recommendations of a few store clerks or may had some experience using one of their friends and or family older GPS units such as the C330 before making their GPS purchasing decision.
The Garmin C330 is an excellent product that was supposed to be EOL over 18 months ago yet it is still alive and selling well, this Q4 the Garmin C330 will be a Walmart blow out low price GPS item for Garmin to compete with Mio and Magellan.
If you notice, low price point also have a huge factor in buying decision, the lower cost GPS units seems to be the most popular and most affordable no matter what features they are lacking, I guess the good enough syndrome applies here, if you don't know what you are missing, it does not hurt you.
The Nuvi 350 is currently Garmin #1 best seller that is not EOL and a refurbished unit can be purchased in the low $300 which is a much better deal than the Garmin C330 unit, most consumers seems to stick with what is recommended to them. they are less likely to take a risk and try a newer GPS model that is unknown to them or the store clerks that is selling the products to them.
Ask the store clerk which product they like to sell best and they will point to a Garmin unit most likly, ask them why and they may not be able to answer as fast. I would say less returns.
So again, I would recommend for consumers that wish to buy a GPS unit but unsure of which is the correct unit for them to consider renting a GPS unit first to test out before committing to an EOL product that is inferior to a newer affordable GPS model.
Magellan RoadMate 2000 is already EOL much like the Garmin C330 and the newer MRM 3100, 3200 and 1200 will take it's place, all these Magellan GPS units are directed towards lower price points to meet consumer expectation and demands. This Q4 should be interesting. Look for Mio to introduce a low end GPS product that is in the $79.99 to $99.99 price range on this Black Friday sale, will it have all the bells and whistles we want? NO, but you can call it a GPS system I guess if you don't wish to use a paper map to navigate with.

I agree w/GPS4ME. Part of it is non-savvy consumers. Some of them don't shop around and do research and just look at prices.

At Fry's earlier today, IIRC, the C340 was $350 and the Nuvi 350 was $500 (a terrible price). On their site, I see the C340 going for $350 and the C330 for $250.

So, what will the non-savvy consumer who doesn't know you can get a much better, smaller and newer Nuvi 350 for $350-$360 buy? They'd probably go w/the cheaper one they see.

Interesting why the Garmin Nuvi 350 is still a top seller since that unit is also over 2 years old. Wonder if Garmin will mothball it soon.

Having just read your recommendation on "units to avoid" I would like to add my humble opinion to this page. I own a Garmin StreetPilot C340 and have been very happy with it. Although it doesn't use the SiRF receiver, its GPS signal acquisition and performance has been impressive. The only time I lose GPS signal is when I'm parked under a freeway overpass, and since I don't drive around under the freeway overpass all the time, whether the GPS is SiRF chipped or not is irrelevant. Signal acquition is almost immediate once I pull away from under the freeway and I'm right on target. Vast majority of the consumers will mount their GPS where it will have a good view of the sky. My non-SiRF C340 also works very well driving around downtown Los Angeles amongst the high-rise buildings. Consumers will opt to pay for the lowest priced item, hence the reason why the popularity of the non-SiRF'd, outdated (and sometimes) discounted models. I think you're doing the consumers a disservice by flatly rejecting all non-SiRF receiver based GPS. There are excellent units available for low prices. My C340 was just recently updated with the newest map (2008 NT) and firmware from Garmin for free. I am very satisfied with my unit and its performance.

I also own a Garmin I5, Magellan 2200T and 6000T and haven't had any issues with whether the unit was SiRF chipped or not. They all seem to "see" the satellites very well.

I'm still a GPS newbie. However, with regard to the C330, they're now available all over the place for under $170. Some places had them for $150. Garmin has been willing to give a free set of the City Navigator NT 2008 maps to people who bought them recently.

So...for $150 you get a functional GPS with up-to-date NAVTEQ maps and an old-skool GPS non-SiRF receiver. Is that such a bad deal?

I know it seems weird that some folks don't want to drop $400 on a GPS, but there's another way to think about this. Namely, this year's $400 GPS will be next year's $150 GPS. Thus, by spending $300 ($150 this year, $150 next year), a frugal family can outfit TWO cars.