Cost of Bells and Whistles

I had the 295W and it had a lot of the features you listed and had geotag camera, wifi, email, internet browser, MP3, hot cradle mount, user replaceable battery, etc.

I have a friend that bought one at the same time and she has logged thousands of miles with it and still loves it, she is currently on a 4,000 mile round trip using it. My son has one also that he borrows out to others when they need a GPS. We all paid around $70 when we bought it.

Here are some of the features:

Additional Specs

Camera: Yes (3 MP with auto-focus and geo-tagging)

WiFi connectivity: Yes (with web browser, e-mail, weather forecasts and Google™ Local Search)

Email: POP3 / IMAP4 / SMTP

Internet: HTML browser based on Webkit platform

Connected services: Yes (Google™ Local Search, Panoramio™ Photos and weather forecasts)

1-step navigation from contacts, e-mail and local search results

Headphone jack is 2.5 mm.

Link to Garmin page for the 295W:

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the-road/discontinued/nuv...

As far as I'm concerned they should go back to making a GPS that does what a GPS is suppose to do like the old Street Pilots. I have always said take my SP 2820 and put Nuvi screen on it and I would be happy. Why does anyone need a MP3 player or picture viewer in a GPS? If I want to play MP3s I'll plug a stick in my car, if I want to talk on my Cell phone I'll Bluetooth it through my radio, and who drives down the road looking at pictures. Call me old fashioned but that's my view on it.

Sorry Don B, but I think it will not happen soon, if at all. Devices with useless futures are a sign of our times. Look around. You have phones that will do everything (not too well though) but make a call, TV sets that makes a lot of troubles after pretending to be internet browsers, cars that are loaded with bells and whistles but got poor quality engine, etc.

Go to store and listen to conversation of average customer with salesman. They are not asking about main function of device (whatever it is) but about additional "perks". And will not buy even best product unless there will be thousand additional futures. Manufacturers are on their end egging up this idea, and finaly we got what we got.

I loved the MP3 Travel Guides I would get when I had my old 750. Walking and listening to what is in front of you was nice. And listing to stories about where you were going while driving. I have missed the MP3 player.

Each feature you add to a device costs money. So building in features raises the sale price, even though those features are not active. I will never buy another Uniden police scanner because they do just what you are suggesting.

"Give me more money and I'll turn on what you've already bought."

Not only do they add new useless features they take away features that are useful. It doesn't sound like much but my old 2820 would show the upcoming street when not navigating, but when I got my 855 that feature was gone. I found that feature to be extremely handy for two reasons. When traveling a country road after dark one quick glance at the GPS would show me the name of the road I was looking for and when in a strange city in heavy traffic again a quick glance would show me the street I was looking for, I didn't have to rubber neck around looking for a small street sign on who knows on what corner. In a city to me this was a real safety feature. This feature was one of the main reasons I bought my 2597. I am a happy camper again.

I'm pretty sure my hearing aid manufacturer, ReSound, does exactly what you're talking about at the design level. They have multiple hearing aid models that are made differently. But within each model of hearing aid, it can be common for them to have three or six levels of programmability and bells-and-whistles features. Turns out the hardware is the same for those three or six levels of a model; just the software that's enabled varies.

Now hearing aids are quite a bit more expensive than GPS units. It's typical for the base model, for one ReSound hearing aid for one ear (aids are typically priced this way even though they're normally sold in pairs) to cost $1500. The top-of-the-line version of the same model could be $3000. Multiply those prices by two of course for both ears. Some aid models run higher and others lower. But this is typical.

So this same-hardware, only-the-software differs, rubs some customers the wrong way. They don't think it's fair that they have to pay thousands more to get top-line features and programming when the hardware is the same. Truth be told, most aid users probably don't even realize that's the way it's designed when they choose their model.

I'm not sure with ReSound hearing aids, though, that you can later go back and upgrade the software to the higher level with the credit card as you suggest. It's certainly not something a hearing aid user can do on his own. If it was possible at all, the user would have to go back to the audiologist and have the audiologist do it. But as I say, upgrading after purchase may not be possible at all.

It's the name of the game. Otherwise, people would buy 1/10th of the clothing, electronics, computers, cell phones and cars that they currently buy.

A boy walks into a candy store to buy a sucker. The clerk says "That'll be $55.75 please.

The boy says "Why so expensive?"

The clerk says "We build-in all kinds of options. If you want a sweet sucker then we can turn on the sweet feature for just a few dollars more." We can turn on the long-sucker feature or the steak-flavor feature, the extra cost is very small."

The boy says "But I just want a sucker....why do I have to pay for stuff I don't want?"

"It's you duty to maximize the sucker profit" said the clerk.

As I said in my earlier post, adding feature hardware adds to the cost of the product. It doesn't make any difference if the feature is turned on or not.

http://sites.garmin.com/annualreport/

Again, it is essential that Garmin remain an independent, stand alone, financially viable company. If I were a stock holder I would require that they leverage their areas of growth, expertise & margins.

I have my frustrations with the company's products like most. However, I would hope that they keep the company out of the hands of ... That should be their job one, and as current hardware users we all benefit by that priority.

I bought my gps to show me where I was going. a nice voice to tell how to get where I was going. a park a hotel location. but I guess some people want everything built into everything whats next porta pottys built in lol . a radio is for listing to music a camera is for taking pictures a car is to drive a gps is to help you find a place you want to go. ok my rant is over now I feel better lol