While Magellan and TomTom spent most of '07 fighting for the low-end market, Garmin continued to position itself as a premium brand, offering best-of-breed navigation, ease of use, and top-notch customer support. Those willing to pay Garmin's higher-than-average prices got great products that are reliable, well executed, and access to Garmin's excellent customer support.
It wasn't all A's for Garmin, however. Customers still hope Garmin will bring a few more features to the Nuvi, pricing was confusing, and the 2008 Map Update left some customers out in the cold.
I would tend to knock Features down from a B+ to a B or B-.
My simple Garmin Quest had the ability to exclude specific roads and to handle multi-destination routing. While my Nuvi350 shines in most areas, it was disappointing to lose these valuable features. I was hopeful that they would reappear via a firmware update when they showed up on the 700-series...but so far they have not.
Garmin is still ole reliable, but I'm afraid that they are behind other manufacturers, innovative-wise and technologically-wise.
It's still the #1 choice if you want the best routing and support, but Garmin seems to be resting on its laurels as it continues to milk the tired nuvi line.
I think the offered rating is QUITE a stretch. As someone that lives in a rural area it was more than disappointing to spend nearly $500.00 for a GPS unit only to find that:
A - In order to route from my home I have to spend another $130.00 for map coverage that came with my old eTrex. Being a 'road less traveled explorer' if it doesn't include coverage for my area, I have no reason to believe it would be useful when trying to find my way home from any other than a major city.
B - All of the routes and maps previously saved with my Garmin software & GPS are worthless. Load a previously saved route into the new GPSMap 60CSx and it changes them because of it's lack of coverage for my area.
C - The absolutely useful 'find' feature, unless you know where you are going, or are seeking a road within some hidden and arbitrary distance from my present location. Example as a test I was going to plot from home to a store on one of the MAJOR streets in portland even though the street I sought was only 12 miles from my fixed location it didn't exist to garmin. That is until I moved the map pointer closer to the road I sought(a feature that is documented NO WHERE in the docs, or website at garmin.
So I am thinking a D is generous, anything above that is wishful thinking.
Here in Belgium and the Netherlands, Garmin refuses to give any kind of support. They only tell you to contact the store that sold the device. At least TomTom offers *some* support in the US. That's a big fat E for Garmin support.
Fletch, I can't mod the comments or these would be gone. A couple of spams under the comments here.
Fletch, I can't mod the comments or these would be gone. A couple of spams under the comments here.
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