Daily gear deal – Garmin nüvi 200 for $87

by Scott Carmichael on

Today’s daily deal is for the GARMIN nüvi 200 GPS unit. The nüvi 200 is one of the most popular GPS devices on the market, and thanks to its great routing, and Navteq maps, you’ll have a reliable device that shouldn’t have too much of a problem getting you where you need to be.

With such a low price you’ll get a fairly basic product, so don’t expect too many bells and whistles. It has all the basic navigation features, including a large point of interest database as well as a calculator and world clock.

The nüvi 200 normally retails for about $150, but Newegg.com has it on sale for just $87.

This low price does mean you’ll get a refurbished unit, which means the product was once returned to the manufacturer, and was returned to its “as new” condition.

Included with the product is a windshield mount and car charger. The nüvi 200 ships for free with 3-day UPS express.

Daily deal – Garmin Nuvi 270 GPS unit for $199

by Scott Carmichael on

The deal of the day for today, is the Garmin Nuvi 270 portable GPS unit.

This highly portable GPS device weighs just 5.2 ounces and has a 3.5″ high resolution display. At just 0.8″ thick, it’s the perfect device for in your car, or in your pocket.

At $199, this is not the cheapest basic GPS unit on the market, but the Nuvi 270 does have one trick up its sleeve: it comes preloaded with maps of North America and Western Europe.

In addition to this expanded map, the Nuvi 270 also has turn by turn voice prompts, which means you will get basic spoken directions (but no spoken street names).

Like most other Garmin Nuvi units, the Nuvi 270 comes with some handy features for travelers; a built in currency converter, measurement converter and even a world travel clock.

Included in the box is of course the unit itself, a car charger cord, a windshield mount and a self adhesive dashboard mounting disk, for people living in California and Minnesota, where mounting a GPS unit on the windshield is illegal.

The Garmin Nuvi 270 usually retails for $299, but it can be purchased from Costco.com for just $199 after a $100 instant rebate. The deal is valid till August 11th, or until Costco runs out of stock (if you get a message saying the item is not valid, try again in a few hours, Costco seems to keep “finding” new inventory).

The Nuvi 270 can be purchased here, just keep in mind that if you are not a Costco member, you’ll have to pay a 5% surcharge ($10), though I have read reports of that being waived if you pay with an American Express card.

Garmin Nuviphone delayed till mid 2009

by Scott Carmichael on

Back in January, Garmin announced their first combination of a GPS unit and mobile phone called the Nuviphone.

The Nuviphone was originally slated for Q3 of this year, but this morning, Garmin announced that things were delayed till the first half of 2009 due to “carrier requirements”.

While this delay may seem like bad news, it is actually not all doom and gloom. Having to make changes for mobile phone carriers means there is clearly significant interest in it from the mobile operators which means you should be able to buy the phone directly from your phone company, with a significant discount.

This 3G enabled phone will come preloaded with maps of the US or Europe and even allows you to do online Google searches from inside the map application. By combining a phone and a GPS unit, the Nuviphone also provides online access to gas prices, local weather reports, sports scores and real-time traffic.

In coming years, I’m sure we’ll see more GPS units become connected to the Internet. Magellan are working on one and the Dash Express has been available for several months. As more and more mobile phones add GPS, we’ll see more and more GPS units add a phone. The ability to do an online search for something directly on your GPS unit, is a very powerful feature.