Man, I could kill myself... I already have one in green, but I love that purple more than life itself. Maybe I'll call the crisis hotline and ask them what I should do.

Hmm... The 800 sounds interesting. What I really want, though, is something like the 700-series (big touch screen), but waterproof and with better battery life. That's the sort of unit I want to carry on the street, rather than the GPSMAP 60CSx or Vista HCx. I want something really easy to use and easy to read. I'd use it on my bicycle too.

Oh, and another feature all these things really need is... The POI database from the mapping companies should be regularly updatable online -- the same way Symantec et al update their virus signature databases. Restaurants, gas stations, banks -- they're changing all the time. A map update every year or two is not enough. In fact, these updates should really happen directly, and wirelessly.

All this attention has brought much-needed vitality to that moribund site. It has come back on peoples' radar screens, and traffic has picked up. Now maybe we'll start seeing regular updates again. Oh yeah... ;-)

How cool!

Old days: Everyone tried to be witty

New era: Everyone has an avatar

Much better :-)

I hope the display area is really that big. And to be competitive, it has to be a touch screen.

I currently use a 60CSx (hiking), an eTrex Vista HCx (cycling), and nuvi 660 (car). All are outstanding products. I'm really looking forward to an update of the hand-held units.

Now if they could only manage to make the map licenses transferable from one unit to another when I buy new ones!

I wonder if they'll be able to scan the bar code on my iPhone with the polarized screen protector on it? (not easily removable)

Sounds good so far. 13.3" is a great size for the screen of a small notebook. Hopefully there will be very little border around it, so the footprint will be small. I hope the screen will feel sturdier than the one on my Sony TX, which is blade thin, but very flexy.

They can leave out an optical drive. I hardly ever load software from CD/DVD anymore. By the time software gets burned and shrinkwrapped, it's out of date and you have to download updates anyway. As for saving off data, I save it to a USB thingy or I send it somewhere over the net. As for the needs of gamers... put the darned games on SD cards -- not DVDs.

I could live with as little as 64GB for now, for the sake of having no moving parts, as long as I can swap the 64 for bigger SSDs as they become available.

Bring it on!

I wish I could do the opposite. I love the browser in the iPhone, and use it a lot. I'm not much of a talker, though, and I rarely make phone calls.

Since I still have to carry my Blackberry anyway, since the iPhone is pretty useless as a business and data tool, and the voice quality is much better on the Blackberry (8830), I tend to use it for phone calls.

Excellent! I've been waiting for this update.

I'm disappointed. I was hoping Garmin would get their own mapping company -- and that they would be more flexible with their licensing.

I love Garmin's GPS units, and own several of them. But... I recently got clarification on their licensing agreement with Navteq for end-users:

Once you associate a specific receiver with a map license, you can never transfer it to another unit. So, if you purchase a Garmin GPSMAP 60CSx, and purchase a US map license (around $130) and a Europe map license (around $250) for use with it, you can never use those map licenses with another unit you purchase.

If Garmin comes out with a much-improved replacement for the 60CSx next year, and you want to buy it, you have to buy new licenses ($130 + $250) for it. There is no way you can dissociate your existing licenses from your old unit and apply them to the new one.

For me, a gadget nut, and someone who has lots of uses for GPS, that puts me in a bad spot. I'm all for buying new hardware when I want new features, but to have to buy the exact-same software all over again for it... that will make me investigate other brands to see what their policies are.

I really hoped owning their own mapping company would bring Garmin to come up with a more flexible (and sensible) licensing policy. Only being able to use the license on one unit makes complete sense to me, but not being able to transfer it -- in a product sector where the products are frequently upgraded and improved -- makes no sense at all. These guys need to buy a copy of Photoshop, and see how Adobe lets you activate your license on one machine at a time.