gps receiver for iphone

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April 26th, 2009 admin Leave a comment Go to comments

Why do GPS units cost so much?

I was in Best Buy the other day and noticed that most of their GPS units were selling for $400 or higher…the one unit which i felt had the bare minimums of what should be a GPS unit cost upwards of $849 on sale!! I can buy an iPhone (which has more technology in it, i might add) for less than that price. So what gives, why do GPS units cost so much???

A GPS unit is made up of a low res LCD screen, a frequency tuned receiver to pick up the coordinates beamed down from the geosynced satelites, internal computer memory to store the pre-installed map for the geographic region, and a touch screen display. I would figure adding a $20 receiver unit to the iPhone could make a kick-ass GPS unit for less money…and i can do more on the iPhone.

Can someone explain why GPS units cost so much because i feel its an industry (like the gas industry) where they have high markups and customers are happy to pay it.

Thanks
I live in Canada btw..so that $849 price tag is in CAD funds…

Price is determined by many factors, not the least of which is supply and demand. GPS is a relatively new technology; so, there is less competition than there will be in time. ALSO, many of this lot of GPS manufacturers incurred lots of R&D costs that they are now trying to recoup. AND since it’s a new technology, they don’t have the manufacturing efficiency down yet. You see this all the time, a new electronic device hitting the market to much fanfare, no competition, and it’s price being WAY up there. Then as more and more people enter the market, better and better manufacturing techniques are learned, etc., the price drops. Consider that my family bought our first VCR on CLEARANCE for $800! Give it some time and GPS will drop in price, big time!