Oregon and Dakota future?

[fujitsu]

Hi,

 

What do you think it will happen in the near future to the Oregon and Dakota models? Any prediction about upgrades, for instance, new chipset to "see" GLONASS and Galileo satelites? Or any other?

 

Regards,

AA

[yogazoo]

Pure speculation, since no one but Garmin knows for sure, but I would expect updated Dakota models and perhaps the Oregon within the next two years or so. The deal with a larger screened unit (Montana for sure and perhaps the Oregon) is that it takes more processing power to draw/refresh the screen. Currently the Tesio II is simply slower than the well developed GPS only chips and isn't exactly snappy redrawing even the eTrex screen with any detailed maps enabled. It's noticeably slower to pan and scroll than my Montana that's for sure.

 

My guess is that larger screened units may have to wait until the next generation of consumer GLONASS+GPS chip, one that has a bit more power to muster drawing/refreshing a bigger screen.

Edited December 20, 2011 by yogazoo

[+sv_ted]

I would also expect the Montana screen to migrate to the smaller touchscreen models. I have not seen the Montana screen but I hear that it is more readable than the Oregon or Dakota.

[RamblinBear]

I'll be willing to bet that those chipsets are already in development/production - the Russian Federation market will be too big for comanies like ST Microelectronics to ignore, and it will be cheaper for them to produce one range of "do it all" GPS+GLOANSS+WAAS chips than separate ones for each GNSS system.

Edited December 21, 2011 by RamblinBear