Discontinued Garmins

Unless you have a specific issue you want resolved, having it discontinued probably doesn't matter.

I'm happy with the discontinued 350 such that I have reason to upgrade - there are some nice features that I might want, but nothing that would really make me move just yet. (I really want a nice avoidance interface, without spending a ton.)

The 260 is new but the xx5 series are the newest.

First let me say that you can not buy anything electronic, even if it is a brand new model, just released, that isn't "old". Technology moves so quickly that by the time a product comes on the market, it is nearly obsolete... That being said, consumer electronics advance so rapidly in Japan that they see products that never make it to the US. In fact they see products years before they are introduced here. The latest iPhone is "The Ultimate" cell in the US but it isn't selling that well in Japan because it barely matches the capabilities of the phones that have already been on sale there for months or years...

OK, more on topic.

There is nothing wrong with buying a discontinued unit IF you understand that the unit may not be as "feature packed" as a current unit, software to operate the unit will probably never be updated and the manufacturer will probably stop supporting the unit in the future. Also, depending on how long the unit has been discontinued, non-warranty repairs may and eventually will surpass the price of purchasing a brand new unit, if a repair can still be accomplished.

Third party accessories will stop being produced for discontinued models too.

The primary benefit to buying a discontinued model is you can find fantastic deals when you want to purchase them because everyone is just trying to move them off the shelves.

Another benefit is that there is a large body of reviews and comments about the discontinued units so you will have a better idea of how well the unit should function, whereas you may not have this information on newly released units.

The Nuvi 260 was released over a year ago and is what I purchased a few months ago when I decided to jump into the automotive GPS market. It had all the features I needed at the price I was willing to pay. I looked at other units and while the features they offered would be nice to have, the additional cost wasn't worth it to me.

If the discontinued models you are looking for has all the features you want or need, you are aware of the negatives of the unit and the price point is where you are comfortable, go ahead and buy it.

It really depends on your needs. All I wanted was a GPS unit that could get me to where I was going, didn't need or really want blue tooth, an mp3 player, etc or any other of the bells and whistles so I bought a c340 almost a year ago, when it was discontinued, and am still very pleased with it's performance. And I can still get updates through Garmina and poi's through here

Thank you, Saxmaniac, JF0Z28, and Rocknicehunter. I have a clearer understanding of what is meant by discontinued. Rocknicehunter thank you especially for you’re very through response.
I am looking at the 650, for its multiple destinations,which is discontinued. But I was concerned about the discontinue issue. Like JF0Z28 I currently have a C530 bought when new. I am very happy with it. I did have a problem with the recent map update. I could load US or Border states with Canada. But I needed Canada for business reasons. I loaded Canada onto a card. So although discontinued products can have issues there is a work around sometimes.

the 650 doesn't do multiple destinations but the 750 does.

6xx will do multi-points but you must manually add them every time, you can't pre-save them.

every time you enter an adress it goes into recently found file. so you can pre enter addresses, i used to do it all the time before on my 350 before I bought my 750.