Confirmed Price On Garmin Gps60cs

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

I have just had a email from Garmin confirming the release date and rrp in the UK of their new GPS60CS, which is the top of the range GPSr's aimed at geocacachers. Due to go on sale in the UK January 04, with a recommend retail price of £489+vat. This unit has pages dedicated to geocaching, USB connection, 56MB memory, unfortunately Garmin seem to have shot themselves in the foot by missing the xmas market. Dave

[+Cave Troll and Eeyore]

Better get saving lots of pennies.

Where can i see a piccie of this new gadget?

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

Here we go http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap60c/ , this is the address of the products page on Garmin web site, and if my maths is right rrp is £574 inc vat. Thats a lot of pennies, but worth everyone. Dave

[Slytherin]

I have just had a email from Garmin confirming the release date and rrp in the UK of their new GPS60CS, which is the top of the range GPSr's aimed at geocacachers. Due to go on sale in the UK January 04, with a recommend retail price of £489+vat. This unit has pages dedicated to geocaching, USB connection, 56MB memory, unfortunately Garmin seem to have shot themselves in the foot by missing the xmas market. Dave

Perhaps you should email them and ask them how a rrp of $482.13 U.S.D. translates to £489.00 bearing in mind that the pound is at £1.70 at the moment.

 

Even allowing for shipping and other costs this is an enormous rip off. I can see a lot of these things coming in as grey imports.

 

Alex.

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

RRPof gps60cs in UK £574.57, rrp in US in sterling £315.ll, difference £254.46 thats a hell of a difference. email on its way to Garmin, will pass on reply, should make good reading. Dave

[+stu_and_sarah]

I love caching, but 490 quid? For a bit of technology which helps me cache? When I already have one? (ok, two). Or even (given the exchange rate) 280 quid?

 

I can't imagine needing anything more than a yellow eTrex for caching. The legend is handy for urban navigation (and rural, for that matter). But what more do you need for caching than an arrow pointing in the right direction, and possibly a topo map?

 

Am I seriously missing something? Sell it to me!

 

Stu

Edited November 21, 2003 by stu_and_sarah

[+John Stead]

Up to you - some of us are sick enough to cache because we enjoy playing with toys, i.e. the more complicated the equipment the more fun we get out of it. The GPSr is not so much a tool as a source of pleasure in itself.

[Waldo]

Having seen the spec. I would think it would work a lot better under tree cover than the eTrex Legend I have. The extra memory means I could probably download maps for the entire country and then some.

[+The Hornet]

Or you could go somewhere like this and get it for around £250. Of course to be strictly legal there would be postage, import duty and VAT but it's still cheaper than Garmin UK intend charging.

 

Also there would be the problem of it having a US basemap but I'm sure that could be fixed.

 

There again you could always get a cheap air fare to the US, buy a unit, have a few days geocaching over there and still end up in pocket.

[+Cave Troll and Eeyore]

Thanks for the link.

I want one if the price is right.

I will consider one from overseas if big savings are to be made as previously mentioned.

[+Huga]

Or you could go somewhere like this and get it for around £250.....

Also there would be the problem of it having a US basemap but I'm sure that could be fixed.

Probably not fixable. I did the same to get my eTrex Vista nice and cheap, and it has a USA basemap. These units are pre-loaded at the factory and apparently cannot be changed, not even by Garmin.

 

I've hunted the 'net and contacted Garmin, and the ROM units are exactly that - Read Only Memory. They're not flashable like the firmware or the map-storage memory.

 

So beware anyone buying units from the USofA.

 

Of course, 56MB will accept most of the UK's (if not all) map info from Mapsource, so once that's uplaoded, you end up with a basemap of the US and a map of the UK - bonus

[+Lizzzzeeeee]

I may be being a bit dim here (unlike the screen on this fabby new model) but isn't one of the main purposes of this GPS the quality of the maps? Where is the material coming from? The piccies I've seen include colour and contours, as far as I know Mapsource is line drawing and B&W.

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

I may be being a bit dim here (unlike the screen on this fabby new model) but isn't one of the main purposes of this GPS the quality of the maps? Where is the material coming from? The piccies I've seen include colour and contours, as far as I know Mapsource is line drawing and B&W.

The units come with what Garmin describe as "detailed base map" I presume to go with the reflective tft screen. Dave

[Team Tate]

What gets me is that the main thing us Geocaching folk need with this new device, is the Geocaching specific funtionality.

 

Ok, It's a new gadget, and the colour screen looks very pretty. But at the end of the day, we all have managed perfectly well up until now without one!

 

The main thing of interest to me is the Geocaching software. Why can't Garmin offer this as a new feature on a future release of firmware for their existing GPS models? I would gladly give up the 'Jumpmaster' feature (I can't remember the last time I met someone with a GPS that had jumped out of a plane) on my Etrex Vista for it!

 

Waddaya reckon?

 

Bob

[+paul.blitz]

The extra memory means I could probably download maps for the entire country and then some.

My iQue has Mapsource maps for all of England, Wales, and Scotland as far as Glasgow / Edinburgh. That takes up about 120 meg, plus more for all the "index" stuff.

 

To fit into the 56meg available, you'll have to be a lot more selective. If you live in England, then you could lose Scotland & Wales, and maybe some of the English "extremities" like Cornwall & the far north (and just put those on if you actually NEED them).

 

Its a shame these units don't have card-slots! (you never know, future versions might!)

 

Paul

[+Hi-Tek]

The extra memory means I could probably download maps for the entire country and then some.

My iQue has Mapsource maps for all of England, Wales, and Scotland as far as Glasgow / Edinburgh. That takes up about 120 meg, plus more for all the "index" stuff.

 

To fit into the 56meg available, you'll have to be a lot more selective. If you live in England, then you could lose Scotland & Wales, and maybe some of the English "extremities" like Cornwall & the far north (and just put those on if you actually NEED them).

 

Its a shame these units don't have card-slots! (you never know, future versions might!)

 

Paul

My iQue has the whole of the UK mainland loaded (Mapsource City Select) which takes up 131Mb of the SD card.

 

I agree with Paul, it would be terrific if these GPSr's had a facility to add a memory card. I wonder if the reason they haven't is the 'waterproofing' of the unit. I would think that the guys at Garmin could easily have designed a memory card slot/place that is within the watertight envelope.

[+NattyBooshka]

I agree with Paul, it would be terrific if these GPSr's had a facility to add a memory card. I wonder if the reason they haven't is the 'waterproofing' of the unit. I would think that the guys at Garmin could easily have designed a memory card slot/place that is within the watertight envelope.

Well... they manage it with batteries... CF card slot would be easier I guess.

[+S&G.Davison]

I have just had a email from Garmin confirming the release date and rrp in the UK of their new GPS60CS, which is the top of the range GPSr's aimed at geocacachers. Due to go on sale in the UK January 04, with a recommend retail price of £489+vat. This unit has pages dedicated to geocaching, USB connection, 56MB memory, unfortunately Garmin seem to have shot themselves in the foot by missing the xmas market. Dave

Perhaps you should email them and ask them how a rrp of $482.13 U.S.D. translates to £489.00 bearing in mind that the pound is at £1.70 at the moment.

 

Even allowing for shipping and other costs this is an enormous rip off. I can see a lot of these things coming in as grey imports.

 

Alex.

Garmin just seem to love scr*&ing us in the UK - I recently was looking to buy a Mapsource City Select North Americas for for Garmin V as I was going to the USA and needed the road routing - I was quoted a price of £226.78 to buy it in the UK

 

I went to the USA and bought a BRAND NEW GPS V Deluxe with North America Base maps and all region unlock for 399 USD - approx 249 GBP... so for an "extra" 23 GBP I got a brand new Garmin V (with the US base maps), a power cord and Serial cable ......... So now have both European and US base map units, very flexible

 

IMO - Garmin Europes pricing is unrealistic ....

[+dogastus]

This US vs UK pricing is common, not just a Garmin thing. Just look at digital cameras, home cinema and pretty much anything else. I guess duty, VAT and shipping don't help.

 

dogastus

[+Team Spike]

Perhaps you should email them and ask them how a rrp of $482.13 U.S.D. translates to £489.00 bearing in mind that the pound is at £1.70 at the moment.

 

Even allowing for shipping and other costs this is an enormous rip off. I can see a lot of these things coming in as grey imports.

 

Alex.

Because the exchange rate doesn't really mean anything. 1 quid = $1 in buying power. I guess this means that the cost of living is cheaper in the US than in the UK. I don't understand it all but I think the exchange rate is to do with national debts, economy, etc.

 

Groover

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

The cost of Garmins in this an absolute rip-off.Ihave spoken to many retailers which has only reinforced my feelings about this.For instance the yellow E-trex is now more expensive than it was 3 years ago-just look at the reduction in the prices of any other electronic gadget .You either get more bangs for your buck or an increased specification (computers ,digital cameras etc) or the price is reduced .As far as I can see the only electronic gadgets that do not follow this trend are gps devices.The E-trex has not changed too much over the 3 years since I bought mine ,the only difference is the software which is not rocket science so for the price to go up say from say about 1.4 times is totally perverse.

[+DustyJacket]

Perhaps the demand for GPS is so low that the normal price drops for electronic devices don't apply?

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

Surely Garmin are selling more units now than 3 years ago-the price should have gone down by quite a large amount

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

I can only go off the price of the yellow etrex, 14 months ago I paid £116 for mine. The same site is selling them at £95, so prices have come down slightly. I purchased it thru a uk site as I wanted to pay for it using BACS. At the time a second uk site was selling the unit at £148, now both sites are the same price.

Dave

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

I PAID £98 for mine 3 years ago from an ordinary retail outlet not on the net .I have seen the same model for sale in retail outlets in the Lakes at £135 -£150 in the last month.Just look at the price of any other electronic device that stays the same and in all cases except for gps devices the price has dropped substantially.

[Team Tate]

One thing that is important to remember when goods are priced, is that pricing is usually based on the marketplace and the competition.

 

I once worked for a company that supplied software used to log telephone calls. The pricing for the software that could monitor 10 telephone systems was exactly the same as the software used for monitoring 1 telephone system, however the cost for 10 systems was significantly higher - the only difference was what was unlocked within the software on installation.

 

When I questions my sales director about this, his answer was that people expected to pay more to monitor more systems, so that his what he charged!

 

Fair enough or not, he had a point.

 

What Garmin have done here is very clever. It must be remembered that they have not included the Geocaching functionality because we asked for it - it is because they knew that by introducing such a feature, people would buy it if there is nothing else on the market that can offer similar functionality.

 

Unlike a TV or video recorder, there are not that many GPS manufactuers that have as big a commercial market as the like of Garmin or Magellan (OK, I know there ARE more - but their market is by no means as big as these two).

 

If we all get excited and go out and buy this new offering - Garmin have won! They can charged what they l;ike for the new unit knowing that someone will buy it!

 

What we should be doing is putting presssure (commercially of course) onto the likes of Magellan, Navtrack, Trimble, etc. to produce something that is a viable but comparable alternative.

 

My personal preference would be to invest the best part of £500 in a PDA, CF GPS and some good mapping software. With the PDA, it would be relatively easy to produce a piece of software that could do everything the Garmin system offers - also with the ability to work on-line (to download cache data) and log vists whilst 'in the field'.

 

Just my thoughts - I just don't think I'm ready for a £500 investment just yet!

 

Bob

 

PS - Just in case you are wondering - I use a Garmin Etrex, so I'm not anti-Garmin, and don't have a shed load of money!

[+klaus23]

I bought my basic Garmin Gecko from globalpositioningsystem.com for 150 pounds. In Ireland it tends to sell for around 250-400 euro (400 euro =240 pounds!).

 

Imagine my surprise when I walked into a store in New York yesterday and saw one on sale for 130 dollars...

 

According to xe.com thats 75 pounds!!! Wow.

[+welch]

I bought my basic Garmin Gecko from globalpositioningsystem.com for 150 pounds. In Ireland it tends to sell for around 250-400 euro (400 euro =240 pounds!).

 

Imagine my surprise when I walked into a store in New York yesterday and saw one on sale for 130 dollars...

 

According to xe.com thats 75 pounds!!! Wow.

which Geko did you get?? If it was the 101 Garmin is really sticking it to you

During the recent sales (Thanksgiving weekend), the base etrex was on sale for $79(us), and someone said they saw a Geko 101 for $75. Both usually sale for around 100.

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

Hi Team 8,I agree with a lot of what you say but why does this apply in this country whilst in the states it appears that some Garmin models sell for about 40 pounds.It seems this country is used as a milch cow by Garmin.Imyself have 2 Garmin models both of which cost a lot less in the States.I can see some small difference but the amounts we are talking about are very large-why not sell at 2/3the price and move more units?

[+Seasider]

I'm putting my accountant's hat on....

 

Don't forget guys to add the following if you are comparing prices of US goods:-

 

1) Transport costs

2) Import Duty (10-20% depending on what it is)

3) VAT (sales tax in the US, where it exists, is far lower than here)

 

These can easily make a US retail price of £100 into £140-£150 here.

 

Also bear in mind that the exchange rates some of you are quoting are inter-bank rates ie you can't exchange money at those rates. You need to look at the tourist rate which are the rates the credit card co or bank would give you.

 

.... I've taken my hat off now!

 

However, taking these into account though I agree there are great discrepancies between global prices.

 

Seasider

[+The Hungry Caterpillars]

Even taking all these into account we are still being ripped off .I think that old technology which is what we are talking about should cost a lot less than it did 3 years ago-i.e the yellow E-trex should cost about 65-70 pounds ,not up to 150 pounds.Remember all the costs quoted by Seasider where in use 3 years ago.What a total rip-off!!