2013 International Consumer Electronics Show

Personally, I'm pissed off with Garmin as I met the product managers last year for the latest Nuvi's and pointed out a series of issues which they asked me to email to them. I spent quite a bit of time documenting feature issues with screenshots and sent it along. They never bothered to follow up with a) the issues and b) a confirmation that they were looking into them. I will be at the booth next week to a) see what's coming out and b) to give them a piece of my mind!

Interesting. They are probably too busy to deal with you. They were probably being polite when they asked you to "email" them, rather than telling you to get lost... LOL

The other problem with talking to Garmin at CES, and other shows, is that the people manning the booths are sales folks for the most part and not the technical staff we really need to get to.

I've found over the years that I got very little follow up on any issues that I passed on to them during, and as a result of talking to them at trade shows.

In the automotive electronics business I retired from, if someone was telling me about issues in 2005.....we were already working on 2010 and 2011 stuff......the years before that were pretty much cut in stone already. So it would be a long time before any of the mentioned issues could be incorporated into a production product.

Now, my experience is quite the opposite. I find that I do get a lot of attention from the booth drones. Of course it's probably the name of my employer and my position, but they are always fairly responsive.

This from the Garmim booth?

I get a lot of attention but not a lot of results.

The sales folks at the CES booth are very attentive but that doesn't translate into any positive outcomes from the people that really make the changes.

I've never attended CES but Garmin has shown up at many other shows I attend along with Tom-Tom. Both companies are very attentive and responsive to our questions and we usually get responses from the VP level. But then I don't press them about their consumer products other to let them know I own an 885.

At our last meeting Garmin wasn't there but Nokia was with one of the NavTeq mapping cars. Very impressive. When they extend the camera assembly above the roof it stands almost 14 feet with 12 high resolution cameras and a LIDAR for developing their 3-D images. Just the roof equipment is about 1.5 million and that doesn't include the processors and storage units in the back of the mini-SUV. Tom-Tom was there with their mapping products and services. I'll probably see one or both in a couple of weeks at another show here in DC.

Let the hunting season begins.

I'd say, more than 50% of the new products will disappear from the market within a year.

Does anybody here recall if Garmin typically announced new products at CES or are they simply a presence at CES for their existing product line?

I've been to the past 7 CES's and all Garmin products had been announced prior to the show. When I go over to the mobile section for Pioneer and Kenwood however, they actually don't release any product information until the show starts. Once it is announced on day one of the show, then they post details for upcoming models on their website.

That sight is very good at highlighting the good-to-best new technology from a user's point of view. Meaning, does it do what it's advertised to do, how well, and what's missing or could've been done better?!