Fletch, glad to see you stay on top of the specials.

Fletch

By the end of 2009, all PND will be like cell phones and you get the unit free with a two year contract.
There is no money to be made with hardware and content is where is at. Blowing out inventory they can't move is just another way to show how slow this market is becoming. There is no rush to go buy a PND unit since the price is dropping everyday and product is pretty much looking and feeling the same.
I been using the Nuvi 5000 and found bunch of search issues with POI etc, slower redraw and just over all disappointing.
No batteries when there is games so I guess that would be only good for taxi or limo drivers that are waiting around with nothing to do but play games, or better yet, let your kids play games while you drive and have your kids get sick in your car.
The hardware is being made for SOOOOO CHEAP these days that they will probably fail before the warranty is up.
How disappointment it is to have a great industry such as navigation go down a road like this.
Cheap is the name of the game, quality has nothing to do with selling units.
So everyone get what they ask for, a cheap product that may or may not work when you need it.

I have to agree with everything that GPS4ME is saying.

Garmin, instead of taking leaps forward, is sadly taking multiple steps backwards.

Their milking of the nuvi line and the lack of features offered, at a relatively premium price, are a disgrace.

These deals on HSN, Costco, etc., aren't "specials." It's Garmin getting rid of overstock on less than impressive units, so that they can come out with even lesser impressive units.

Fletch, I'm surprised that you are still a Garmin proponent (as I once was) after such negatives as:

1. Taking away features from their nuvi line only to add them slowly back at a greater price. Features that their competitors offer on even the cheaper units.

2. Diminished performance of their gps chipsets i.e. acquisition times and locks. Read other forums and see how large a problem this is.

3. Garmin and their reps being less than honest (OK they lie) when questioned if units have SirF III chipsets or not. Garmin should keep their customers out of any issues they are having with SiRF and other suppliers.

4. Poor overall performance. GPS4Me's evaluation of the nuvi 5000 (slow POI searches, redraws, bad road locks) is consistent with what many others are saying about Garmin's newer nuvis.

I can go on and on with how poorly Garmin's units and quality control have fared over the past year or so.

Yes, they still have decent customer service (compared to other manufacturers) but I supsect that their reps will be very lonely in the near future if Garmin doesn't start offering better product with more routing features (road excludes should be a no-brainer) that their competitors offer at a better price.

RobGPS, I have to respectfully disagree. NO other GPS manufacturer has supported it's owners the way Garmin has with the 700's. Satellite complaints? They added FREE upgrade to sirf quickfixII. Adddress entry complaint. Loosened the retrictions on spelling in the entry algorythm. When the new MSN services were announced for the 800's and (AGAIN) some owners felt entitled, Garmin stepped up and made the features of MSN2 available to the 700's. Name one other manufacturer that has added a true feature, free via firmware, this year? How many GPS's out there can remotely receive routing data via the internet. Or give a display of position accuracy. Or includes a map scale on screen. Or displays posted speed limit on screen. Or WARNS you when exceeding the posted speed. Or includes quickfix2. Or autoscans for open fm xmitter frequency.

Any of these features are desirable in nearly any of the competing systems. Somme have a few of them. Some have none. Garmin 760's have then all. Right now, when comparing true features and performance, who do you think has a better unit. Certainly not TomTom. Magellan, no. Mio, Navigon, HP, NO.

I really appreciate the way Garmin reacted to the market and think kudos are in order.

The 760 has sirf Quickfix II for fast autonomous satellite fix, leaves "breadcrumb trails" to help you see where you've been, uses the newest MSN2 traffic services,offers true multi-stop route optimization, offers subcategories of POI's such as restaurants (ie, Italian, Seafood, etc) to help you find the type of food you're looking for, uses a single integrated cable for both traffic and power, offers
"auto-tune" for assist in finding open FM broadcast channels, has superior screen antialiasing to render cleaner lines and easier to read text, shows estimated position accuracy, has an included "screen-shot" function for easy sharing of map with your GPS-less friends, can navigate to ANY coordinates entered within the confines of the map, can load add'l topo maps, can load 10x the number of favorites, will display speed limit on many US highways on screen and warn if exceeding the posted speed, includes trip statistics, can remotely receive routing info from maps.live, allows mixed alpha-numeric address entry including special characters such as a dash, uses redundent city labeling so that the EXACT city name is not required for address navigation, audibly announces what side of the road your destination is on once you arrive, has route cancellation on the main screen rather than buried several menus deep, and includes a screen-lock function to prevent inadvertant screen taps when in pedestrian mode. NONE of these functions are available from TomTom for its top-of-the-line 920. Garmin has added a map scale, sirf uickfixII, simplified addy entry, and support for the newest MSN2 features via free firmware updates. What features has TomTom added to the 920 since it's release? All in all, the 760 beats the TomTom soundly in features AND support. What do I have to complain about with Garmin? I can't selectively avoid a road? Sounds kind of petty. Seems as though TomTom and other users/buyers should be SCREAMING about their lack of features. And how much does a 760 with all these features cost? About $550. Or go for the 750 with the add'l MSN cable for slightly over $400. No one else can offer this combination of features and price. Considering this is an AUTO navigation device, I'm not sure what your complaint is.

I think we may have got this all wrong with quality and features over what Garmin can offer us.

Let me explain, Garmin have been a rock solid PND company with great products offered at a premium price, and most consumers that wish for a real GPS unit will gladly pay for it due to the features and dependable search features and routing algorithms Garmin has to offer.

We come to expect the best from Garmin because they put them self as the leader of the PND industry. They are known for their quality and service much like Mercedes or Lexus.

With that said, what Garmin have done lately like most others GPS manufacturers are taking the low road and competing with price mostly, instead of a high quality GPS product at a price that is deserving for the features and quality it has to offer, they have reduce the quality and price to compete with lower end entry level units at the sub $199 range.

You can’t be successful in every price point efficiently and Garmin is trying very hard to be a company that has a product for everyone at the price point everyone wish to pay.

We know we want everything for nothing, so I doubt they will be able to achieve this goal without getting some help from advertisement sponsorship to off set the cost of the hardware and developments, but that comes in to play later on in 2009/2010.

Good for Garmin and I appreciate what they are trying to do.

What I do find is a lost of quality on their higher end product due to a need to rush products to market before they are really ready, this has always been an issue to use consumers as beta testers and having the consumers pay for reporting limitations and issues with their products.

Good example jere is the Garmin Nuvi 5000, currently offering not the SiRF receiver but the Bravo. Is it bad or ineffective? Not really, it’s comes with a 20 channel GPS receiver that appears to function properly during my testing.

What’s to complaint than? Well, while trying the search feature such as POI’s (restaurants) in a different city, it is impossible to find certain known POI that was once possible in the older Garmin systems, no match! Yet when we get to the POI physical location, sure enough is there and available? I would say that’s an issue and next to map accuracy, POI would be the next most important feature for a navigation system.

When the map redraws, it is so slow that the screen goes half blank for a while. System seems slow over all and feels like a slower processor. This is not acceptable for a $799 unit when a $299 unit can do so much better. Yeah, it has a larger display but also it cost more and Garmin should have taken this into consideration when designing this product and offer a faster graphic card and processor that will be able to refresh the screen, search and reroute faster.

I love the games this new Nuvi 5000 includes, but what good are games without an internal battery to use this Nuvi 50000 with when you are not navigating in a car? I can see myself waiting in a airport or in a plane wishing I can play the games that are loaded in my new Nuvi 5000. ( I let someone play with the games while I was driving and she almost got sick). What was Garmin thinking off?

I would recommend to Garmin for the next release Nuvi 5xxx version to consider an internal battery, BT hands free, faster processor and fix the POI search issues.

Note: In comparison, the Panasonic Strada CN-GP50U 5” display PND have an internal battery and will last up to 4 hours on battery with the large display and it can be had for $349! WOW! It also includes features such as Text to speech, BlueTooth hands free, NavTeq Mexico mapping software with full North America map coverage, voice recognition, speed limit positing and so much more, picture viewer and so much more.
So at $799 price point for the Garmin Nuvi 5000, you would think Garmin can do a little better with the features they offer, don’t you?
The only limitation of the Panasonic is the Navigon software, the search and UI is weak in my opinion.

No Bluetooth hands free on the Nuvi 5000? Why would they take a feature like that away when in California hands free phone will be required in a few months?

They have taken the use of SiRF receiver name off of their Garmin box because Garmin wish to compete and use cheaper GPS receivers from different GPS manufacturers, so today you can have one brand they can change up on you and you won’t even know it would you? As long as it is a high sensitivity GPS receiver which most if not all GPS companies claim these days, Garmin can ship different GPS receivers in their products without letting the consumer know.
I wish Garmin to be honest about what they are including in their package and display what they are selling you instead of using a generic description name such as high sensitivity GPS receiver.

As far as Magellan has to offer that Garmin currently don’t offer. I would say AAA tour book features such as POI rating information, events such as art and wine, home shows etc, AAA saver guide, roadside information, and voice recognition ability for some of the Maestro lines, route exclusions, quick spell etc.
Magellan have taken some of the market share back from Garmin this past Q4 and they expect to be 25% of NA business this year. They are also coming out with WiFi GPRS enable GPS devices aka Maestro 5340 Elite that can perform real time web search with Google and able to send car to car messages, route to a destination by simply sending a destination from a desk top to the Maestro 5340 which maybe great for fleet applications because this would act like a dispatch software, emails and so much more, this will be available in a few short months.

As far as what does TomTom have that Garmin currently don’t offer.
How’s about voice recognition that is not yet available till the Nuvi 800’s comes available? Hows about Map share software capabilities? How’s about the ability to fix map errors on the fly when you find a mistake by your map vender and that would be NavTeq for Garmin and Tele Atlas for TomTom, never the less, it’s great to be able to fix issues found on the fly. The price point for the TomTom 920 with Bluetooth can be had for $449 or less and that’s not a bad deal at all. Am I saying TomTom is better than Garmin, no, what I am saying is Garmin have taken a step downward to the level of cheaper products instead of quality high-end PND units they were once known for.

I am not saying Garmin is inferior by all means, they are a great company under the new leadership of Cliff Pemble the new President and COO of Garmin. What I am saying is Garmin was the Mercedes of PND industry before, with their higher price and superior quality and service to go with the price, now they are playing in the sub $200 price range and I understood that someone was able to buy a featureless Garmin Nuvi 200 for only $124 which is a great deal but the product is not the standard we expected out of Garmin.

Would you buy a Mercedes for $15,000 with less quality and a Mercedes emblem? I would say Garmin is using their good name to sell some limited feature GPS products and I am not saying they are wrong, it’s just that they are no longer what they represent themselves to be and have just became like every other GPS manufacturers that is trying to make a quick buck with a low end PND unit.

Not saying they are wrong by all means, but you are not getting a Garmin as we once knew it to be.

I like Garmin like I like Magellan and TomTom, and will always enjoy testing and using their products for what they have to offer, They all have their strengths and weakness and I call it as how I see it, if they are good, I give them credit and if they are less than expectation, I let them know that also.

Like I said, it only cost $50-$85 to assemble a PND device these days, so with that in mind, maybe we are all paying way too much! In the next few years, we will see server base PND, WiFi, WiMax, GPRS etc and cell phone slowly taking over the current PND market in 2009, and this is the reason why most GPS manufacture companies such as Garmin, TomTom and Magellan are going by way of having a cell phone GPS application with their own software and user interface.

The NuivFone looks great and I am sure that will be our next PND all in one PND phone from Garmin,. The only problem they face is how to extend the battery life of the NuviFone cell phone one while using GPS in pedestrian mode, so you have an option of reducing your cell talk time dramatically and or not use the GPS device because it’s such a drain on your battery.
Decisions, decisions!

Lot’s of bigger fish coming to play in the fastest growing industry, this GPS business has only started and only 10% of the US population owns a GPS device, so we still have like 40-50% to grow before it tops out. This year, the GPS manufacturers hope to double in business again, so hang on to your old GPS system till Black Friday this year because word has it most consumers only keep a GPS device for 12-18 months much like a cell phone so is time to upgrade again this Q4.

Sam's Club sells the Garmin 750 for $299.00 all the time.

If you upgrade your Sam's membership for only $15. you get an additional year warranty on the Garmin, plus on any other electrical things you might purchase.

That price beats any other extended warranty prices.