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If you're the kind of person that needs to have every feature possible, there will soon be two great GPS options for your smartphone/PDA/etc: the Garmin Mobile 10 and Mobile 20. The Mobile 10 is a Bluetooth receiver with software, and is the upgrade from the GPS 10 Deluxe. The Mobile 20 is an all-in-one mount with GPS sensor and power cord for smartphones such as the Treo. These look exciting; it's a wonder that Garmin took so long to develop it. The Mobile 10 should finally give the TomTom Navigator 5 some competition, for the first time in two friggin' years.
Finally, a new product announcement I'm truly stoked about: the Lowrance iWAY 600c. It's essentially the same thing as the iWAY 500c, but in addition to road navigation, comes pre-loaded with Lowrance's marine charts for the USA, the same as an LCX-26c or LCX-111c. This means that there's now a full-size touch-screen GPS system for both car and boat use. It's the same thing as having an iWAY and a GlobalMap 3600c in one unit. This should also beat the pants off the Garmin GPSMAP 478 and 378 because it's got a larger screen and is practically half the price! Only negative seems to be that you gotta buy the marine mount separately. The iWAY 600c should also contain a much-sought NavTeq map update.
So to recap, what was formerly the largest, easiest-to-read GPS system ('til the StreetPilot 7200) now comes ready-to-go with ocean and lake charts as well. Kickass!
The Thales Group, a French conglomerate which has been the parent company of Magellan GPS since it acquired it in 2001, has finally sold Magellan to a group of private equity investors led by Shah Capital Partners. You can read the story here.
Thales would probably not be too happy if I revealed the selling price, but apparently they sold Magellan for less than a fifth of the price they were seeking as little as a few months ago. In my opinion this was because the company spent too much time over the past year trying to be acquired, and not enough time running its business. Magellan has lost siginificant market share over the past year, most of it to newcomer TomTom. While Magellan was once the overall market leader for automotive GPS systems with the bestselling automotive system, the RoadMate 700, it is now the #3 company by units sold behind TomTom and Garmin, with less than 20% market share.
The bottom line is that Magellan still has a very well-recognized brand. While the new owners of Magellan GPS are not considered by many to be the cream-of-the-crop in the private equity world, they do appear to be adept at turning around troubled companies. Given Magellan's brand, and what I still regard as a highly talented bunch of employees, it could definitely come back as a major player in the portable GPS market.
It was leaked on the internet a good two weeks ago, but Garmin finally made the official announcement of the nuvi 660. It's essentially the same as the nuvi 360 but with a 4.3" diagonal screen, making it one of the largest systems out there. If the new screen is glare-resistant, this could be a huge upgrade. The nuvi 660 (pre-order here) also has an FM transmitter feature (useless in New York City, as there's no empty bands) and come with the GTM 20 traffic receiver (very useful in New York city).
I'm still wishing they would put the StreetPilot 2820 routing interface on it, but the new screen will be even bigger the 2820's, yet in an ultrathin unit, so that's promising. It will be out roughly mid-October. The big question is why Garmin waited so long to announce it, when the FCC website, numberous blogs, and one store were leaked the information on the unit. It won't be out for another month anyway, so what advantage were they trying to achieve? And Garmin, Magellan, TomTom, Lowrance, et. al. are never shy about clamping down on a retailer who's leaking "insider information" or posting info before the "official" release (see: RoadMate 2000).
