The next Streetpilot I series?

[supercliff]

Does anyone know what Garmin are planning for the next I Series? if anything?

It would appear that the i3 availability is fading out. Is this an indication of somenthing to replace it, or the end of a range?

I apreciate that the c Series is slowly dropping in price, but will Garmin release another "small, inexpensive automotive GPS navigators that make driving fun", or will they simply slowly continue to lower the price of the c Series until it is 'Inexpensive'?

It would be nice to see another 'i series' replace the current range, perhaps with a few minor upgrades to the screen and processor, but retaining the low price.

Cliff

[Lester_Burnham]

I'd be very suprised if they didn't at some point release a new range of budget units - the popularity of the i3 must have been somewhat unprecdented, and as a generalism, sat nav units have become wildly popular over a short space of time.

Most likely because of the rapid reduction in price, plus the bonus of the "safety" camera alerts that most are capable of.

If nothing else, you have to hand it to garmin for really capitalising on that budget end of the market - whether they were truly lucky, or whether it was well-timed will probably suggest how likely they are to produce another bargain unit with the same impact as the i3.

[bumpkin]

I would welcome the facility for adding say 5 waypoints, rather than the current 1, to enable a little more control over the routing. The facility to save these routes would be great as well but not as important in my book. Not sure if this could be done as a firmware upgrade for the i3 or would require significantly more processing power.

Garmin's argument on this would probably be that I need to upgrade to a higher spec model to get this functionality which is valid, however, limited routing done directly on the i3 (or it's successor) would be very handy.
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Chas
Garmin i3, Quest & StreetPilot 2720 with GTM10

[zogman]

the i3 in comet is about to be discontinued and is selling at £106 so maybe garmin is replacing it..
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[supercliff]

Hello again,
They have been slowly fading out everywhere. Halfords still have the I3 online, but it's dissapearing from their stores, as with everywhere else.

It thought it would be good if they made minor upgrades to the I3. such as:

A slightly larger screen, but still retained the overall front dimensions of the unit.

A slightly better processer with more frequent map refresh rate.

A detacheable battery pack that could be either a mobile phone style battery, or a dual AA, similar to the X-Box 360 contollers.

The ability to select 'Bike' or 'By foot' as the vehicle. Afterall the I3 is such a small device, it could easily be used by walkers or cyclists. This would obviously effect the route mapping, but has been done on other SAT-NAVs. Changing the vehicle to 'Motorcycle' and adding the ability to plug headphones would also be a big bonus.

All of the above would increase the potential market of the next I-series, making it a budget GPS for Multi-Vehicles, Something that Tom-Tom havent done.

All of the above could be done for not a lot more cash. It would just be moving with technology and if it were to still be a sub £200 unit, I'm sure it'd sell well.

I'm sure the suggestion of more Waypoints could be a firmware upgrade. But, I'm guessing that most of Garmins efforts will be on newer units and not increasing the functionality of a soon to be obsolete unit.
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Nuvi 660, VW GOLF

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