Hack ‘n Slash At Garmin, Pricing, That is…

Garmin nuvi 200 model

Price slashing, cost cutting, everyone loves a deal when it comes to the price of any item to be purchased. Garmin could become a European consumer’s best friend, as this company is involved in the design and manufacture of navigation, communication, and info devices, and they’ve decided to hack the price of two of their best-selling in-car nav-sat systems. Not by two percent or by five percent, but by 12 percent.



The units involved are the nüvi 200 and 250 models (for cars) as well as the zumo 550 (dual sat-nav for our two-wheeled friends on motorcycles as well as motorists). The 200 includes full mapping for Ireland and the United Kingdom and the 250 includes Europe in its entirety. The systems offer intuitive menu systems that allow the user to quickly located a specific street address or business name… or, they can search by category. There’s turn-by-turn voice prompted directions and, heck, even if you miss a turn, the system can backtrack and put you on the right track.







The Garmin nuvo 500 unit

The 500 system includes Bluetooth “hands-free-to-helmet” wireless technology, European mapping, pre-loaded safety camera information, fuel gauge monitor and locking mount for either motorcycle or car. The unit is waterproof, has left-handed controls and generous touch screen buttons—Southampton, Hampshire, United Kingdom—August 24, 2007



















The Teseo chipset from STMicroelectronics (courtesy STMicroelectronics)

In other Garmin-related news, the company selected the Teseo GPS engine GPS chipset from STMicroelectronics for use in certain Garmin Portable Navigation Devices (PNDs) and handheld GPS receivers. The Teseo platform is a turnkey solution with Time To First Fix (TTFF) values among the fastest in the industry. This is the time required for a GPS receiver to find satellites. Plus, the “warm start”, or the acquisition of accurate time, satellite positioning and velocity (ephemeris) data that have been lost during switch-off takes less than 34 seconds. Satellite augmentation systems such as Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS) and European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) are also supported in the new chipset. Teseo is available as a single-package form and as a dual-chip offering, with engineers currently working on a System-on-Chip solution integrating the Teseo GPS and an ARM9 core for GPS navigation processing—Geneva, Switzerland—August 23, 2007