Price Drop in Garmin Portables

In article om,
texasflyer wrote:
Garmin needs to drop their prices on much more than just a measly $400
off their top end model.

They need to quit being such greedy bastages and come out with a nice
basic, easy to use, portable aviation GPS with large color "portrait"
screen, with WAAS, terrain/obstacle data, airport data, built-in
flight log and E6B calculator features, "land mode", etc, etc, etc,
and sell it for under $800 with all the common accessories such as
cables, yoke mounts, etc, all included in the package price.

Oh wait... I've just described the Lowrance 2000C !!!!!!

Except that, oops, the Lowrance 2000c doesn't have XM weather. Deal
killer for me and many others.

There are many other advantages of the Garmin hand-helds over the
Lowrance units, not the least of which is a higher-resolution display
(though it is smaller), road auto-routing, display of traffic data (from
either TIS or XRX), etc.



JKG

XM Weather, auto-routing for ground travelers, air traffic data from
TIS, etc, all qualify as 'advanced' features, not 'basic' features for
the typical VFR pilot, and might very well justify a premium price if
the buyer is willing to pay such a large amount extra for them. But
is that really worth almost three and a half times the price? ($2.4K
for the 496 vs $700 current going price for the 2000C). Certainly not
to me. My opinion is that Garmin should retail the 296 at about $800,
the 396 at maybe $1300 and the 496 at maybe $1900K and the monochrome
196 at $500. That's about what they're really worth. I don't like
either of the little 96 and 96C units. I thought the little GPS Pilot
III was a much better "entry-level" aviation GPS. They should've just
upgraded it's processor/memory/software/etc and kept the form-factor
of the "III" instead.



On Jun 28, 3:05 pm, Jonathan Goodish wrote:
In article om,

texasflyer wrote:
Garmin needs to drop their prices on much more than just a measly $400
off their top end model.

They need to quit being such greedy bastages and come out with a nice
basic, easy to use, portable aviation GPS with large color "portrait"
screen, with WAAS, terrain/obstacle data, airport data, built-in
flight log and E6B calculator features, "land mode", etc, etc, etc,
and sell it for under $800 with all the common accessories such as
cables, yoke mounts, etc, all included in the package price.

Oh wait... I've just described the Lowrance 2000C !!!!!!

Except that, oops, the Lowrance 2000c doesn't have XM weather. Deal
killer for me and many others.

There are many other advantages of the Garmin hand-helds over the
Lowrance units, not the least of which is a higher-resolution display
(though it is smaller), road auto-routing, display of traffic data (from
either TIS or XRX), etc.

JKG

"Blueskies" wrote

I LIKE that one!

You wouldn't like that one, if you were flying along in CAVU, and someone
else dragged and dropped a thunderstorm right on top of you!
--
Jim in NC

Marco Leon wrote:

The 496 is now down to $2,395 for many stores. Since the vendors need an OK
from Garmin to do this, it may mean a new one on the horizon... Anyone know
more info?

Marco


Yep, it will look like this. Think 3D.


https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=148&pID=9158#

"Marco Leon" wrote in message
...
"john smith" wrote in message
...

That works well until the 15 guys that are flying where you moved the
weather to move it back to your flight path.

Yeah but those 15 guys have to go out and buy the 596 to get that
capability. Brilliance. Hey Kyle, do you work for Garmin's marketing
department??

Marco

Man, I hope my engineer buddies don't see your post. They would never let
me live it down...

KB

"texasflyer" wrote:

XM Weather, auto-routing for ground travelers, air traffic data from
TIS, etc, all qualify as 'advanced' features, not 'basic' features for
the typical VFR pilot, and might very well justify a premium price if
the buyer is willing to pay such a large amount extra for them. But
is that really worth almost three and a half times the price?

Obviously it is, since the thing sold like hotcakes -- it took weeks for me to
get mine.

Garmin was probably kicking themselves for not pricing it higher initially.



That's about what they're really worth.

Maybe to you; that's why you didn't buy. Plenty of people felt differently.

Goods don't have intrinsic worth on some absolute scale. They are "worth"
what the market will pay.


--
Dan
T-182T at BFM

"Morgans" wrote in message ...

"Blueskies" wrote

I LIKE that one!

You wouldn't like that one, if you were flying along in CAVU, and someone else dragged and dropped a thunderstorm
right on top of you!
--
Jim in NC


Talk about fast moving storms...

"Morgans" wrote:

"Blueskies" wrote

I LIKE that one!

You wouldn't like that one, if you were flying along in CAVU, and someone
else dragged and dropped a thunderstorm right on top of you!


Dang!

Just when I was thinking it was a great idea...

--
Dan
T-182T at BFM

Yep that is what it is going to look like. I have a nice one on my boat and
was wondering when garmin would do this. I bet that sucker is going to be 3k
or more. I can wait I have an MX 20 in my airplane that sucker is nice.
"Newps" wrote in message
. ..

Marco Leon wrote:

The 496 is now down to $2,395 for many stores. Since the vendors need an
OK from Garmin to do this, it may mean a new one on the horizon... Anyone
know more info?

Marco


Yep, it will look like this. Think 3D.


https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=148&pID=9158#

"Blueskies" wrote:
"Morgans" wrote in message
...

"Blueskies" wrote

I LIKE that one!

You wouldn't like that one, if you were flying along in CAVU, and
someone else dragged and dropped a thunderstorm right on top of you!
--
Jim in NC


Talk about fast moving storms...

Ever see the movie "The Final Countdown"? That had a fast moving time-storm
vortex that came literally out of nowhere to engulf the USS Nimitz. So
these things can happen! Hopefully Garmin's 596 will be able to display any
time-vortices so one can fly around them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Countdown

I didn't realize this bit of trivia about one of the maneuvers in the Zeros
vs. F-14 dogfight, according to Wikipedia:

"When the F-14s report what happened, Yelland orders them to "play" with
the Zeros but not destroy them. The pilots perform amazing maneuvers like
diving toward the water and pulling up at the last second, feats impossible
for World War II-era planes (though in truth, when this sequence was
filmed, the Tomcat pilot tried to follow one of the Zero's slow barrel
rolls, but miscalculated the low speed maneuver and lost a considerable
amount of altitude, far more than intended, which prompted a hasty full-
afterburner recovery at the last moment)."

No mention how many gees pulled during those barrel rolls. ;-)