A few tips on buying a Garmin GPS unit can be quite helpful. Because Garmin is the industry leader in the United States, and they have such a large number of products to choose from, it’s sometimes difficult to find the right model for your needs and budget.
Hopefully, I can make this all a little easier for you.
The first thing to know about Garmin is that they sell almost half of the GPS units sold in the United States. They do this by offering quality products at a wide variety of price points.
The nuvi is their newer line of GPS devices. You can get a Garmin nuvi for anywhere from $150 to almost $900. That depth of product is great, but it does make selection a little hard sometimes.
In this article, I’m going to concentrate of their newer nuvi line, instead of their older StreetPilot line. The StreetPilots are great devices, it’s just that they’re being pushed aside by the sleeker, more feature-packed nuvis.
Okay, let’s divide the marketplace into three areas, low, medium, and high.
The nuvi 200 is Garmin’s entry level device. And, if you’re just interested in getting from point A to point B, the nuvi 200 might easily be the right one for you.
It’s got maps of the continental United States, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. It will show you where you are on an electronic map and tell you where to turn to get to your destination. It can also double as a digital photo viewer.
At slightly less than $150, you can’t really go wrong with a nuvi 200.
If you want more features, you can spring for the nuvi 350. It does everything the nuvi 200 does and also adds maps of Canada. It can also actually tell you the street names of the streets you’re turning on. In addition to being a digital photo viewer, it can also be used as a mp3 player. At less than $200, I can’t think of a better GPS device at that price point.
If you really want to pack on the features, consider the nuvi 660. It can do everything the 350 can do. Also, it has real-time traffic capability, a bigger screen, Bluetooth, and you can hear it through your car’s stereo system. You can pick up a nuvi 660 for less than $350.
All that leaves as far as your main features is multiple point routing. That means you can enter more than one destination into the device, and it will show you the best route to get to all the destinations on one trip. For some, that’s a really good feature. If you’re interested in this feature, the nuvi 760 is the one for you.
Or, if you want what is truly the most advanced, feature-laden Garmin GPS unit on the market, then spring for the nuvi 880. For a cool $900, you can have it all!
By: Rick Cole
Posts Tagged ‘Nuvi 200’
Tips For Buying a Garmin GPS Unit
January 9th, 20103 Things You Need to Know Before You Buy Your Next Auto GPS Unit
October 8th, 2009
If you’re in the market for an auto GPS unit, then there are three things you absolutely have to know and understand. In order to choose the right unit for your needs and budget, you need to know who the main manufacturers are, what features they offer, and how much various features are going to cost you.
Lets’ take a look at each of these three in order.
First off, there are three main manufacturers of GPS units.
Garmin is without doubt the industry leader in the United States. (Tom Tom leads the field in Europe.)
In the U. S., Garmin has 50% of the market share. And it’s no wonder. They have the broadest product line and price range. Garmin essentially dominates the high end of the marketplace.
The StreetPilots are Garmin’s older models, whereas the nuvis are the newer models. Garmin nuvis are compact, sleek, and pack a tremendous amount of features in a small package. Garmin’s entry level product, the nuvi 200 sells for under $150, whereas the nuvi 880 sells for almost $900!
What’s the difference between the two? The nuvi 200 is an excellent, basic GPS unit. It can do what all modern GPS’s can do–tell you where you are and how to get where you’re going with voice instructions.
If you’re looking for a top of the line auto GPS unit, then look no further than the 880. It does everything the nuvi 200 can do, and it has Bluetooth capability, FM transmission capability, and it can make multiple route calculations. These are just a few of the great features you can get with an 880.
Tom Tom is second in the U. S. market with almost 20% of the market share. Tom Tom is a more recent arrival on the GPS scene, but they’ve taken the U. S. market by storm by offering excellent products at prices that are lower than Garmin’s. The Tom Tom One, 3rd Edition, is a direct competitor of the nuvi 200. If you’re looking for a more expensive, fully-featured model, check out Tom Tom’s GO series. There you’ll find Bluetooth, a larger database of Points of Interest, and all of the features you’ll be looking for in a more expensive device.
Magellan is right behind Tom Tom in market share. But don’t underestimate them. Their Maestro line is one of my favorites. The Maestro 4250 was rated by Consumer Reports as one of the top GPS units on the market. Yet it only sells for around $350!
No 500 word article can tell you everything you might want to know when buying your first (or even next) GPS. What you need now is an informative website where you can browse particular models and also check out their current prices.
By: Rick Cole
