Garmin Could Strike Gold with new Lower Priced Nüvi line

As I stated in another post....
From a quick look, it looks like you can't:
* store multiple routes
* use standard SD card (it uses a MicroSD)
* no Auto sort multiple destinations
* no Garmin Locate
* no MP3player, Audio Book etc.
* no Line-Out (so no sound though car stereo)

Does have LifeTime Traffic.
So I don't think if this is the case they will have a winner.....

Hmmm, it seems like they will get you from point A to point B. There probably is a sizable demographic that could care less about frivolous (to them) extras they won't use. They may want their GPS to simply get them from point A to point B without alot of confusing extra features to figure out. Maybe I'll buy something simple an inexpensive for my mother to get get around with. I'm sure she won't mind if it doesn't make her a cup of coffee and play some tunes to entertain her.

It's allways been about price, and Garmin being able to continue to be king.

Garmin's Nuvi's in the lower end of the spectrum have always been feature less, this is noting new. All though they do have some more than the obsoleted versions.

If your really worried about the micro SD may I suggest you look this over.

http://microcenter.com/search/search_results.phtml?keyword=m...

Wow is all I can say, they look great and the price is right. Why would anyone buy a built in GPS for their car when you can get one of these with better functionality.

Amazon quotes release date as May 20. Prices are the suggested retail price which will probably come down by the release date.

And the sheep are already lining up at the gates......

Yah isn't that great and you just might be correct, Garmin should sell a ton of these new models when they come out!

With stimulous checks in hand!

I wouldn't be in a hurry to waste your stimulous check just yet, I would wait to see if Garmin is going to try to push them out before they are ready, if they do then they will just be another Nuvi and nothing more except for the price and crap with bad firmware.

Bad firmware has given Garmin a really bad name of late, even among the sheep.

So before you line up be sure that the units works, and the firmware is solid, after all Garmin has hoodwinked millions before!

If they do bring out error free units, they will be Gold like I said.

I find it curious that none of these new units support custom routes.

Those will likely follow in a few months after the release of the new units. This "upgrade" procedure is very common for Garmin and new products.

the newer Nuvi's use microSD. Most electronics are moving away from SD to microSD.

With regards to MP3 player / audio book, that is a useless feature. I want to save my GPS battery to navigate, and not burn it down with these features which are present in most phones.

Not necessarily. The nuvi 7x5 series uses the SD format. There are disadvantages to moving to the microSD format for larger sized devices like GPS units. This biggest disadvantage is Garmin's own preloaded data card map products. If you have purchased Garmin maps that came in the SD Card format, those maps are tied to that particular SD Card and can be used with any other Garmin unit. If you then purchase a new Garmin GPS with a microSD card slot, you will not be able to use those maps with that unit.

I see they have an offering of 16gb on a microSDHC
card. I have only an 8gb in my 880, and it will hold me for a while. However, it did bother me that finding a class 6 was super difficult, and the size was limited to 8. Glad to see that is changing just a little.

Disadvantage to the customer - win for Garmin.

Garmin prices seem to drop faster than our investments, the 760 is $226 now. Perhaps the market is maturing now where many households already have them. My goal is to get it built-in to the car the next time I buy a car (I'm due around 2017-2020), annoying to have the thing fall off the dash a couple times a month! Built-in is still not worth the money to me, but I just sat in a car that had factory cameras on all 4 sides and a 10" screen, that's nice. Sure, the car was 90k but it was still nice! LOL

Some units changed the the SD interface mid-stream during manufacture. Must have gotten one heck of a deal from someone.

Disadvantage to the customer - win for Garmin.

I do realize that there is an adapter to go from microSD to a standard SD Card, if fact I have a few of them here. My point was that if you have purchased Garmin maps preloaded on a *standard SD Card* (the large one) and you purchase a GPS unit with a microSD Card (the small one) slot on it, there's no way to use the standard SD Card in a microSD Card slot.

I remember reading of new 8x0 owners having just that problem, both with maps on SD and with the other Garmin products sold on SD Card format, like the Travel Guides. Many 3xx/6xx/7xx owners upgraded to the 8x0 only to find that their Garmin Data Card maps and Travel Guides could not be used with their shiny new 8x0 unit since it has a microSD Card slot.

Hmmm, now that I'd like to see...but definitely on someone else's nuvi!

I wonder if Garmin would allow a user to send Maps on an SD in for exchange to a Micro SD. They maintain the inventory control that way as it would be a 1 of 1 swap with perhaps a "shipping and handling" fee involved. Someone could ask.

I seriously doubt that they will do that. Their customer service is pretty good but they're not that good.

I use mine for only one thing, get to point A to B.
I agree that MP3/audio book are useless features. I read books, don't want to listen to them when I drive.

Maybe they will work with less problems because it takes away many features.

But you got to like the cost of these units and I'm sure once they are out, could get them for less.

interesting. It is true about the SD maps / guides you have bought. I never bought those and it never occurred to me.

It seems prudent in the future to only buy such content on microSD cards, so if you need to use it in a SD slot, just use a SD card adapter.

Unfortunately that doesn't help those who have bought SD cards. Such is the price of technology advances.

Maybe someone can convince Garmin to transfer the content to the microSD format, but I wouldn't be surprised if Garmin procrastinated on this though.

PS - congrats on your COW!

I don't agree the .mp3 function and broadcast functions are useless, I like having the ability to play music/books/et. al. of my choice through the car sound system and still get the navigation information. As I only use this in the car with the traffic/power cord plugged in battery life is irrelevant.

Also, if there is no .mp3 capability then you can't play your custom sound alerts without transforming them all to .wav's, which is a pain in the butt and takes considerably more storage space.

I haven't used all the other missing features yet, e.g. route optimization, but I like having them available and can see their value.

I think they've pushed the limit of the capabilities of their current processors to operate these functions and have decided to remove them rather than upgrade the processors. Doubtless down the line they'll upgrade and bring the features back, but at a considerably increased cost.

I'll stick with an earlier comment. The best bang for the buck is still at least two steps down from the "bleeding edge".

Unfortunately the fm transmitter functionality of the Garmin and other GPS units are quite poor sounding, so the other option is to have a "line out" feature to stream the data to the radio. Typically though, if a radio has the "line in" input, it also can play MP3s by default, or most people use the iPods / dedicated mp3 players that are more efficient at playing audio / video.

I see your point about being able to play mp3, but it's no biggie to convert to WAV. I have a number of free / portable software that converts mp3 to WAV and vice versa.

So yes it is nice to have mp3 player functionality, but the Garmin and other GPS devices are really bad at it due to limited playlist functionality, limited storage, and limited battery life. I much prefer my iPod / cellphones for those reasons.

I do like other features, such as currency converter, travel guides, things that deal with travel in general.

Guess I'm lucky. The FM trans works pretty well for me. I've compared it to the line out function on the Nuvi, and the line-in from my iPod and a direct .mp3 cd in the head unit and it sounds pretty good. I'm probably going deaf! , but the advantage over the iPod/cd is the navigation/camera etc. information without having to worry about it being drowned by the sound system, as the 760 speaker isn't all that loud. Works for me. Another thought, based on your post, I don't think the travel/tour guides would work on a non .mp3 system?

250w is all I need.

The problem with all of the new lines is that you want more then what you already have... Garman continues to amaze..

Garmin should make 3 or four base units, then Ala' Cart things we want or need. Another Manufacture I can think of does this, and is working out well.

"Another Manufacturer" meaning Navigon of course. What makes you think it's "working out well"? I haven't seen any data on sales. I'd be pretty upset if Garmin provided me a skimpy POI database and charged me $30 to provide what they should in the first place.