Garmin's pricey nuvi 850 shows up fashionably late

Quite frankly, we were a touch overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of new nüvis announced for CES, but apparently, Garmin has managed to recuperate from its own outpouring and is dishing out yet another newcomer. On the docket today is the nüvi 850, a Bluetooth-less navigator that attempts to compensate for its lack of handsfree support by featuring a 4.3-inch 480 x 272 resolution touchscreen, a rechargeable Li-ion good for around four hours, a microSD slot, speech recognition, a 3D map view, support for MSN Direct and a built-in media player. Additionally, you'll find an FM transmitter, audio out and an internal (read: non flip-up) antenna to ratchet the style factor up a notch. According to Garmin, this fairly potent device will be up for grabs in Q2 for upwards of $800.

[Via NaviGadget]

[don @ Jan 19th 2008 10:55AM]

Too many unnecessary and convoluting models. They should learn from Apple's iPhone and offer the best GPS model with all of the bells and whistles they can cram in and then offer it at the best price point possible. If they didn't spend so much time/r&d/money making 10 different models of basically the same thing, they could use the savings and bulk discounting of parts to achieve it and dominate. But instead they would rather follow Palm's pathway of many models at different price points, no real improvements. Of course, people will say they like choice, but I'd rather spend a bit more and all the latest features instead of wondering if I should spend the extra bit for this or that specific feature which I may or may not ever use. Just my 2¢.

[Reader @ Jan 19th 2008 7:07PM]

Truly. All these models simply scare consumers away. When there are 10 different models you assume you'll either be getting extra or too little with the one you choose unless you do hours of research. This pretty much just paralyzes the average consumer. There's a great lecture from TED about too many choices.

[travis @ Jan 19th 2008 10:59AM]

weak for the price... garmin will be de-throned by the horde of new gps/pnd manufacturers from asia

[Richard John @ Jan 19th 2008 11:21AM]

Surely TomTom are on the throne, not Garmin?

[Skobbolop @ Jan 19th 2008 11:59AM]

i believe Garmin is no. 1 at the moment.... tomtom no. 2

Garmin will not be dethroned as long as they have cheap GPS units like the 200-series...

[Akhan Almagambetov @ Jan 19th 2008 7:53PM]

I would never give up my Garmin for anything. In my head, at least, it's number one (navigation-wise). Although, I must admit, TT is really good for cramming neat features into a reasonably-priced product.

[Jeebus @ Jan 22nd 2008 1:10PM]

@Akhan Almagambetov

I take it you never use the POI database? Mine is outdated like a pair of leg warmers on Jane Fonda.

[Akhan Almagambetov @ Jan 29th 2008 5:57PM]

Nope. Google maps -> Address -> Garmin -> I'm there.

[S.P. Gass @ Jan 19th 2008 11:18AM]

I haven't purchased a GPS Navigation system for three reasons: too expensive, loss of brainpower, and possible accuracy problems: http://lowtechtimes.com/2008/01/16/three-problems-with-gps-navigation-systems/

[Lawrence Waters @ Jan 19th 2008 12:39PM]

I disagree: Garmin may be #1 now but that's fading fast. On the high end, they are overpriced for what you get; on the low-end, they are feature-poor compared to others. Remember, only 3% of the US population has a GPS and understands things like routing algorithms. I read some reviews of the the Navigon 7100 but a veteran GPS user and three 1st time users. The veteran slammed the Navigon on a whole host of legitimate points including routing. The first time users loved the Navigon, however. They were won over by the whistles and bells and since this was their first GPS, they didn't know any better on routing. Now that sophisticated GPS's are available sub-$500, Garmin is going to look pretty striped down compared to it's competitor's features. And they won't know any better.

On the "high-end", if the Dash Express lives up to 95% of it's hype, why would you spend $300-$400 more on a Garmin? Especially since, as I discovered when I received my v8 Garmin maps in September, the maps were already out of date the day I installed them. With Dash and others going to instant/near instant map updates, Garmin can have the best routing algorithms available but will still be behind the curve since you have to wait a year for map updates...which are obsolete already.

Dash is already talking about v2 of the Express coming out late this year. I'm going to wait and see the reviews of how v1 works in real life. Then in August when the new Garmin maps come out, I'll make a decision whether to upgrade the maps...or replace the GPS.

[Droo @ Jan 19th 2008 4:44PM]

Tomtom is #1 in the world as far as I know, not Garmin.

Tomtom has several features that Garmin doesn't. However, Teleatlas maps are better in the rest of the world than in North America. Tomtom really has to better about this market (with their acquisition of Teleatlas maybe they will). Featurewise, the Tomtom beats the Garmin units with things like Cellular Telematics, DeadRec, VoiceRecog, Mapshare, quickGPSFix, just to name a few.

I almost bought a unit back in December but thought maybe Garmin would come out with a true competitor. Unfortunately, their most expensive unit still doesn't offer the same features that the most expensive Tomtom offers (which is still hundreds less in cost).

[Godmode @ Jan 19th 2008 11:40PM]

Drop the media player - it is not neded since most people have a decent radio in their car, CD player OR mp3 player. What a stupid decidion. Just shove in the BT, and forget about the nonsense with features that suck anyway.

[Travis (again) @ Jan 20th 2008 1:40AM]

by the way, i was at ces and got some news from mio... maybe it's not news, maybe i'm just not keeping up with the rumor mill, but i think i got one of the sales guys to spill the beans on future product roadmap... here's what he said - paraphrasing - "we already have all the hardware and software in our units to enable them to connect to multiple phone networks, it just hasn't been enabled yet..." I ask, "what do you mean, any network or one specific network?..." He says, "really can't say..." I ask, "so you could basically drop in a sim card and away you go right - get traffic, map overlays etc..." He says "yes"

[Dave @ Jan 21st 2008 2:32AM]

I don't see any improvement over the 650. The TomTom 920 seems to have all these features and BT for ~$600.

Unfortunately, neither are as useful as my old Lowrance, despite its quirks, bugs, and poor GPS performance.

[Michael R @ Jan 21st 2008 7:52AM]

Why would you consider this model when the Garmin 760 with blue tooth has a street price in the mid five hundred range? And where's the unannounced Garmin 860?

[BOOTS @ Feb 21st 2008 8:34PM]

TOM TOM IS THE WORST!!!!!!!!!!I JUST GOT ONE TODAY AND THEY DONT EVEN HAVE ANY STREETS IN MY COMPLEX ON THEIR MAPS!!! THE COMPLEX IS OVER 5 YEARS OLD! MEANWHILE ALL MAPS ON THE COMPUTER HAVE MY STREET AND SO DOES GARMIN. I ORIGINALLY GOT THE GARMIN 200W BUT RETURNED IT BECAUSE I WANTED THE VOICE COMMANDS. SO THATS WHY I GOT THE TOMTOM. I CALLED CUST SVC AND THEY TOLD ME TO DOWNLOAD THE NEW MAP AND THAT SHOULD DO IT. WELL THE NEW MAP DIDNT HAVE MY STREET EITHER. UMMM HELLO I LIVE IN LONG ISLAND NY NOT ON MARS. THEIR CUST SVC WAS RUDE AND NOT HELPFUL AT ALL!!! SO IM RETURNING THE PIECE OF JUNK AND NOW THAT I JUST FOUND OUT ABOUT THE GARMIN 850 IM GETTING THAT WITH NO DOUBTS. I LOVE GARMIN!!!! VERY EASY TO USE AND ACCURATE. CANT WAIT TO TRY OUT THE 850.

TOMTOM BUYERS BEWARE OF BAD CUST SVC, BAD MAPS AND JUST NOT A GOOD PRODUCT AT ALL AND I HAD THE TOMTOM 920, THE HIGHEST MODEL. NEVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!