GPS Technology

[TheDeadWalk]

I bought my eTrex Venture HC about four years ago. Just the other day it crapped out on me and I've been trying to decide what to do. The Venture HC was perfectly suitable for my needs, but it's over 5 years old at this point. I can pay the same price for it that I did 4 years ago and get the same GPS or I was also looking at the more recent eTrex 20 for my needs. It's only slightly more expensive but it's newer.

 

My question is, how do GPSr's appreciate over time? For instance, no one would ever dare think about buying a five year old computer. I don't understand why a GPSr, five years later, has the same price point. If I'm looking in that relative price point, what would be my best move?

[+Huntleigh]

I bought my eTrex Venture HC about four years ago. Just the other day it crapped out on me and I've been trying to decide what to do. The Venture HC was perfectly suitable for my needs, but it's over 5 years old at this point. I can pay the same price for it that I did 4 years ago and get the same GPS or I was also looking at the more recent eTrex 20 for my needs. It's only slightly more expensive but it's newer.

 

My question is, how do GPSr's appreciate over time? For instance, no one would ever dare think about buying a five year old computer. I don't understand why a GPSr, five years later, has the same price point. If I'm looking in that relative price point, what would be my best move?

 

My Venture HC will be three in September. What happened to yours?

 

I paid $125 on Amazon and Amazon are currently asking $117. My guess is that the market is just trying to get rid of old stock without making too much of a loss.

 

I've been thinking of what my next device would be and if I had money to burn I would be looking at a Montana or a 62sc (probably the latter). But the new eTrexs have caught my eye and I if you compare them, the new eTrex 30 is a bargain compared with the 62

 

eTrex 62sc comparison

[tr_s]

If you feel really tempted by this series get the 20 rather than the 30 - neither the compass nor barometric altimeter of the 30 are much to hang in the christmas tree. Beware of the so called sticky issue as well, which many, especially geocachers, find to be a real annoying problem.

[TheDeadWalk]

My Venture HC will be three in September. What happened to yours?

 

I paid $125 on Amazon and Amazon are currently asking $117. My guess is that the market is just trying to get rid of old stock without making too much of a loss.

 

I've been thinking of what my next device would be and if I had money to burn I would be looking at a Montana or a 62sc (probably the latter). But the new eTrexs have caught my eye and I if you compare them, the new eTrex 30 is a bargain compared with the 62

 

eTrex 62sc comparison

 

I attempted an update to the device. I read that this is a common problem, but every solution I found online did not work for me. I've attempted to follow them for several hours to no avail. Garmin support was also not helpful for me.

 

If you feel really tempted by this series get the 20 rather than the 30 - neither the compass nor barometric altimeter of the 30 are much to hang in the christmas tree. Beware of the so called sticky issue as well, which many, especially geocachers, find to be a real annoying problem.

 

I'm more tempted by the price than the actual device. The device does seem nice, as as it is essentially an updated version of what I currently have, I don't need anything more, especially not the 30. I was more trying to figure out how GPSr's are updated. The 20 came out last year. Is it expected that there won't be another update to the line for several years again?

Edited April 2, 2012 by TheDeadWalk

[+Huntleigh]

My Venture HC will be three in September. What happened to yours?

 

I paid $125 on Amazon and Amazon are currently asking $117. My guess is that the market is just trying to get rid of old stock without making too much of a loss.

 

I've been thinking of what my next device would be and if I had money to burn I would be looking at a Montana or a 62sc (probably the latter). But the new eTrexs have caught my eye and I if you compare them, the new eTrex 30 is a bargain compared with the 62

 

eTrex 62sc comparison

 

I attempted an update to the device. I read that this is a common problem, but every solution I found online did not work for me. I've attempted to follow them for several hours to no avail. Garmin support was also not helpful for me.

 

 

Bricked it. eh? Something that always gives me the willys when I do something about the firmware.

 

Did you see this thread?

[MtnHermit]

My question is, how do GPSr's appreciate over time? For instance, no one would ever dare think about buying a five year old computer. I don't understand why a GPSr, five years later, has the same price point. If I'm looking in that relative price point, what would be my best move?

Your computer analogy doesn't hold up. There are 100's of companies making interchangeable computers, whereas in handheld GPS receivers there is effectively one: Garmin. Apple would be a better computer to GPS analogy.

 

Garmin has little incentive to either advance technology or lower prices. No significant competitor has yet to appear.

[TheDeadWalk]

My Venture HC will be three in September. What happened to yours?

 

I paid $125 on Amazon and Amazon are currently asking $117. My guess is that the market is just trying to get rid of old stock without making too much of a loss.

 

I've been thinking of what my next device would be and if I had money to burn I would be looking at a Montana or a 62sc (probably the latter). But the new eTrexs have caught my eye and I if you compare them, the new eTrex 30 is a bargain compared with the 62

 

eTrex 62sc comparison

 

I attempted an update to the device. I read that this is a common problem, but every solution I found online did not work for me. I've attempted to follow them for several hours to no avail. Garmin support was also not helpful for me.

 

 

Bricked it. eh? Something that always gives me the willys when I do something about the firmware.

 

Did you see this thread?

 

I tried this. Maybe I am doing something wrong. My screen flashes once, but then nothing else shows up on the screen. After that, the screen won't even flash again unless I take the batteries out and put them back in. The webupdater doesn't see anything either way.

 

My question is, how do GPSr's appreciate over time? For instance, no one would ever dare think about buying a five year old computer. I don't understand why a GPSr, five years later, has the same price point. If I'm looking in that relative price point, what would be my best move?

Your computer analogy doesn't hold up. There are 100's of companies making interchangeable computers, whereas in handheld GPS receivers there is effectively one: Garmin. Apple would be a better computer to GPS analogy.

 

Garmin has little incentive to either advance technology or lower prices. No significant competitor has yet to appear.

 

Thanks for this information. I assumed that Magellan and Delorme were in brisk competition with Garmin just pulling out ahead, but I guess not.

Edited April 3, 2012 by TheDeadWalk

[John E Cache]

Computers become obsolete because of Moore's Law where transistors get smaller and faster. GPSs work fine with older larger transistors. I think I would consider upgrading a GPS to get new features like GLONASS sats. My new Samsung Galaxy Note phone works great with GLONASS and GPS satellites. 20 visible sats most times.

[+dakboy]

My question is, how do GPSr's appreciate over time? For instance, no one would ever dare think about buying a five year old computer. I don't understand why a GPSr, five years later, has the same price point. If I'm looking in that relative price point, what would be my best move?

Your computer analogy doesn't hold up. There are 100's of companies making interchangeable computers, whereas in handheld GPS receivers there is effectively one: Garmin. Apple would be a better computer to GPS analogy.

 

Garmin has little incentive to either advance technology or lower prices. No significant competitor has yet to appear.

 

Thanks for this information. I assumed that Magellan and Delorme were in brisk competition with Garmin just pulling out ahead, but I guess not.

Garmin is in a very similar position to where Microsoft was a decade ago. They're huge because they're huge, people buy them because other people buy them. Their prices are, IMHO, a bit higher than they should be but people gladly pay it, so they're raking in the dough. They're on top and a bit complacent and feel no pressure from competitors; they seem to put out quite buggy software, but push out updates to fix those bugs (and introduce new ones) fairly regularly.

[+dakboy]

Computers become obsolete because of Moore's Law where transistors get smaller and faster. GPSs work fine with older larger transistors. I think I would consider upgrading a GPS to get new features like GLONASS sats. My new Samsung Galaxy Note phone works great with GLONASS and GPS satellites. 20 visible sats most times.

"Moore's Law" was an observation made 30 years ago, and doesn't hold entirely true. It has nothing to do with the actual size of components; advancements in technology lead to the miniaturization of components, the resulting advancements in computing power leading to Moore's observation.

 

And that's not the reason computers become obsolete. Computers become "obsolete" because new, more demanding software comes out which older hardware just can't keep up with - people want to do more with the same hardware, and you reach a point where that's not possible anymore. But over the last 5 years or so, we've reached a point of diminishing returns for the average user - a computer that worked fine for the average home user 5 years ago is still useful today, whereas 10 years ago you were turning over hardware every 3 years (or less) because you needed to. My current home computer is 4 1/2 years old, I consider myself a "power" user, and yet I'm having trouble justifying a replacement at the moment - there's only one or two tasks that would be significantly enhanced by more CPU power.

 

GPSrs have a single task that they perform, and the need for computing power on them doesn't change over time because you can't install any random program on them.

Edited April 4, 2012 by dakboy

[John E Cache]

Computers become obsolete because of Moore's Law where transistors get smaller and faster. GPSs work fine with older larger transistors. I think I would consider upgrading a GPS to get new features like GLONASS sats. My new Samsung Galaxy Note phone works great with GLONASS and GPS satellites. 20 visible sats most times.

"Moore's Law" was an observation made 30 years ago, and doesn't hold entirely true. It has nothing to do with the actual size of components; advancements in technology lead to the miniaturization of components, the resulting advancements in computing power leading to Moore's observation.

I have no idea what you are saying and I worked as a designer in Intel's Logic Technology Division for many years. LTD did the shrinks to smaller geometry.. The smaller geometries were always faster. Moore predicted the shrink rate that was used to determine the geometry size of a next shrink. I guess I am a little biased when I say that Moore's prediction made computers become obsolete.

[+dakboy]

Computers become obsolete because of Moore's Law where transistors get smaller and faster. GPSs work fine with older larger transistors. I think I would consider upgrading a GPS to get new features like GLONASS sats. My new Samsung Galaxy Note phone works great with GLONASS and GPS satellites. 20 visible sats most times.

"Moore's Law" was an observation made 30 years ago, and doesn't hold entirely true. It has nothing to do with the actual size of components; advancements in technology lead to the miniaturization of components, the resulting advancements in computing power leading to Moore's observation.

I have no idea what you are saying and I worked as a designer in Intel's Logic Technology Division for many years. LTD did the shrinks to smaller geometry.. The smaller geometries were always faster. Moore predicted the shrink rate that was used to determine the geometry size of a next shrink. I guess I am a little biased when I say that Moore's prediction made computers become obsolete.

 

You really ought to read the Wikipedia link you posted, then.

Moore's law is a rule of thumb in the history of computing hardware whereby the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

 

The period often quoted as "18 months" is due to Intel executive David House, who predicted that period for a doubling in chip performance (being a combination of the effect of more transistors and their being faster)

 

Nowhere does "Moore's Law" state anything about speed, only that things shrink. I mis-spoke previously, I started to write "it has nothing to do with the speed" but accidentally switched to "size" mid-sentence.

[John E Cache]

Nowhere does "Moore's Law" state anything about speed, only that things shrink. I mis-spoke previously, I started to write "it has nothing to do with the speed" but accidentally switched to "size" mid-sentence.

I guess I don't see your point. In my world the shrink meant less distance for signals to travel and smaller capacitance CMOS transistors that had shorter propagation delays. I admit I was looking at the leaf level instead of looking at the forest.

 

The point I was trying to make is the GPSs don't advance like computers because they are fast enough to keep up with the unchanging satellite technology.

[+dakboy]

I guess I don't see your point.

My point is that microprocessor feature size doesn't shrink because Gordon Moore said they should, as your original post implied. Technology moves forward allowing for the features to shrink in size, and Moore's observation of this progression is what became "Moore's Law."

[John E Cache]

I guess I don't see your point.

My point is that microprocessor feature size doesn't shrink because Gordon Moore said they should, as your original post implied. Technology moves forward allowing for the features to shrink in size, and Moore's observation of this progression is what became "Moore's Law."

I give up. We are talking different languages. I don't know what your definition of "feature" is. I am very uncomfortable talking about my previous life at Intel. When you said "It has nothing to do with..." and went off on long rants you implied I was ignorant. Moore's engineering based prediction was used as part of high level planning. I lived Moore's Law and should not have mentioned it, I guess.