Magellan is shipping a new line of RoadMate units, starting with the 4.7-inch screened RoadMate 1470, to the 4.3-inch screened RoadMate 1440, and the standard size 3.5-inch screened 1340, all featuring the OneTouch interface that simplifies the entry and navigation selections of where you want to go.
The line features a lot of power in a slim package, with highway lane guidance, and highway signs giving you clear instructions when you encounter confusing highway interchanges.
Magellan continues with the AAA bundled information that gives you insight and reviews on locations including restaurants and lodging. the one feature that I have come to like is Highway Exit POI's - giving you a quick look at what's at the next exit, glad to see Magellan has this rolled in.
Just days after the acquisition closed for Mitac to buy Magellan, they have announced an upgrade to the Triton Software to improve accuracy, battery life and usability. Magellan has come under fire by users who were disappointed by their overall Triton experience and maybe this is a way to upgrade and eliminate those shortcomings as they strive to overcome a few sins of the past.
Mitac and Magellan Brands to Co-Exist in US After Takeover
Mitac owns Magellan - it's official, and they have announced that they will keep the Magellan and Mio brands separate in the US market. Clearly with the announcement of the new Mio S platform, Mio isn't messing around with low end stuff only anymore. The statement out of the press release (below) is intriguing:
"Following MiTAC International Corporation's now-final purchase of Magellan Navigation's Consumer Products Division, Mio Technology has announced a shift in strategy. The company will continue to deliver sleek, easy-to-use portable navigation devices, but also accelerate development of a variety of innovative GPS-based lifestyle products that extend the user experience well beyond traditional PNDs."
So, will both brands concentrate on similar automotive GPS units with distinct feature sets? Or will one brand be set-up as the automotive brand while the other will take on this GPS-based lifestyle product owner? It will be hard to offer the same hardware base with the same features and software under two brands - retailers don't want it and consumers will see through it.
Many of these acquisitions set the company up to have one brand a higher tier and one a lower tier. The one segmentation that I could see making sense is to start with a style based segmentation - Magellan - Bold, blocky and rugged, with traditional features, while the Mio is a sleek stylish and slightly upscale model with refined features. We'll see.
Mio's parent company is collecting brands like skipping trading cards, and added the Magellan brand of GPS receivers to its pack of brands today. They already have the Mio brand, and the Navman brand, both a bit tarnished in the US market, but firmly a top player globally. This adds yet another chapter to the Magellan brand that once stood at nearly half the US market, an innovator that lost its way somewhere. Owned by Thales, and sold to Shah Capital group in 2006 for $170Mil. They have fought hard to maintain their #3 spot in the US, after the onslaught of Mitac's own brand Mio a few years ago when Mio exploded onto the US market only to lose their way too.
So, what's next? Magellan has a relatively well known brand name in the US, but their units have been wanting for high quality execution lately - great features, troubling implementation. If nothing else, Mitac just bought extra sales and extra cash flow, bringing the volume and profit margins onto one balance sheet. My sense is that they will need to update the interface, and build unique looking Magellan units built around a core platform across all brands. Also, with Mio's expertise in mobile handsets, expect some connected Magella-Mio connected unit out as soon as they can lock down an interface.
Magellan Maestro 4350 & 4370 Announced - Traffic, Improved Interface
Magellan has announced a new unit at the high end of the line, the new Magellan Maestro 4350. It includes some pretty innovative features including a "One Touch" interface that allows you to get what you need in rapid fashion with a single click. The One Touch interface has you setting up various points of interest in a single location that you acces with a single tap. The Maestro 4350 carries forward the AAA TourBook data which is an expanded information set of specific POI locations such as hotels and restaurants. The Maestro 4350 also includes traffic alerts in a new interface, with several other improvements to the unit's interface to speed data entry and give a better overall look and feel.
The Maestro 4350 is available now with a list price of $499, but is already seen online at about $400.
The Maestro 4370 uses a high quality WVGA screen for even better looking maps and navigation. The Maestro 4370 will be available at BestBuy exclusively.
Magellan "Suspends" Development on Maestro 5340 Connected GPS
Did you hear that? That was the sound of the high flying Connected GPS plane crashing back to earth. Magellan indicated through TWICE magazine that they are suspending development of the Maestro 5340 due to consumers' low appetite for high priced GPS navigation systems and the associated monthly fees that come with these units. This comes after a couple of delays in their launch that was originally planned for March.
"Although Magellan believes there is great promise in connected navigation, in the near term, consumers have shown an unwillingness to pay a steep price for PNDs, especially with the recent economic downturns," the company said. "We have suspended our development on this device and will re-examine the market potential when the climate changes."
The article at TWICE is focusing on the BestBuy Insignia CNV10 and CNV20 connected GPS units, and indicates that the BestBuy venture could serve to educate users on how a connected GPS can help them in their daily fight against traffic, etc. If other manufacturers are counting on BestBuy and the CNV10/CNV20 to drive the connected segment they had better hope that people see the value despite the early impressions that the unit is of low quality.
The Garmin Nuvi 760 came out on top of Consumer Reports' latest GPS rating, with TomTom and Magellan also rounding out the top 5. It's not a big surprise that these three occupy the top 5, I have always said, it's easy to design a GPS, but it's hard to design a good one. The big guys have been designing their units for years, and the difference is a solid understanding of the basics, with a very good interface. I am still not as impressed with the Magellan interface still as the Garmin and TomTom interfaces.
For those of you who couldn't wait to sink $1200 into a super widescreen (5-inch), connected GPS from Magellan, well you are going to have to wait a while longer. The unit that was originally announced back at CES 208 in January and was slated for a Q1 2008 launch isn't happening (yea, no kidding, it's already Q2!!! I know). We now see some confirmation as Tiger GPS who has been taking pre-orders for the advanced unit, is now saying "MAGELLAN IS NOW PROJECTED TO RELEASE THIS PRODUCT IN JULY 2008".
Should be interesting to see this hit the market, as they have teamed up with Google to provide search capabilities, and the unit will deliver some more sophisticated connectedness to provide better POI search, as well as traffic and gas prices. The unit will also have historical average speeds to make it a more complete traffic solution. Its Bluetooth handsfree capabilities comes with a dual microphone with noise canceling technology to help make for crisper conversations.
Magellan continues to put out newly packaged units for the market, keeping the line updated with some pretty high end features like voice recognition on the new Maestro Elite 5340 Elite with GPRS mobile connectivity to give you live updates on traffic conditions and some limited connectivity to the internet while driving. So while the high end of the market is important for driving news and profitability with those higher profit units, a lot of people understand that the start of the GPS battle is waged on the entry level end of the market. Those battles are fought with deep discounts, specials where a $15 dollar difference can drive units off the shelf by the dozen. The issue is that with so many people coming into the GPS market, and buying an entry level unit for their first unit, you really need to lock them up with a great experience, so when they are destined to upgrade you keep them as loyal consumers, and they upgrade within your line. Ok; long story short, it appears the Magellan RoadMate 1200 falls short on the quality needed to get people to stay with the Magellan name, according to a recent review by CNet, where they thought the unit fell short in a few key areas.
CNet saw that slow performance in a couple of areas really brought the experience and overall usability to a screeching halt. Slow at registering inputs had them waiting after screen taps so that they said they "Spent a lot of time looking at the hourglass", while some sluggishness in turn commands had then getting the command as they were passing the street they needed.
The Magellan RoadMate 1200 is a standard screen unit, 3.5-inches, with maps of the US (48-state), and 1.3 million POI (A little on the short side for my tastes).
ReadMore on the CNet Review of the Magellan RoadMate 1200
Not a bad deal on an entry level widescreen unit from Magellan. I mean widescreen for $159?
What to you get?
The Maestro 4000, the unit has voice guided directions (Not text-to-speech), maps of the continental US, and 1.5 million POI. The Maestro 4000 comes with AAA TourBook information that I liked when I reviewed the Maestro 3140 last year. Read that full review for an idea of what I thought of the Maestro products.
If you want a Garmin - the Nuvi 200W at Amazon $188 - No Text to Speech, Continental US Maps. The difference is that the Garmin has 5-6Million POI so looking for a local business will have a much higher success rate. The Garmin not have the AAA TourBook content, but has what I believe is an easier interface to use. See My Full Review - Nuvi 200W
GPS Market Share Changes - Big Moves Through Discounting
According to NPD, market share of the GPS market moved around a bit in the last three months of the year. The same big names were there, but the percentages moved. Sure the big loser in share is Garmin - they had the market share to lose.
Unit Share Oct - Dec 2007
Garmin - 37%
TomTom - 27%
Magellan - 19%
Dollar Share Oct - Dec 2007
Garmin - 45%
TomTom - 24%
Magellan - 15%
So What?
Since Garmin's dollar share is higher than its unit share, that says that they held higher average prices across the holidays. TomTom with their low prices on the TomTom ONE ($129 - $149) had temporary price reductions to gain market share during the quarter. Pretty shrewd. Garmin on the other hand discounted steadily, but now can afford a lower priced option (the Nuvi 200) that is selling online for about $185. Clearly their fuller high end sold well also.
Magellan was in a similar place to TomTom, discounts and lower priced units going through the sales channel.
The big deal for TomTom is that once they have the consumers in their brand, they may just see their consumers trade up to more expensive devices down the road, as they stay competitive with new innovations and smart marketing.
In the end, the earnings are coming out later in February; we'll see how the strategies paid off in terms of near-term profits. Did the expanding market lead to better profits for all? Long-term, the market will just get more competitive and better prices for better units.... stay tuned.
From 2006 - the numbers were a little different...
There is always a lot happening at CES, and this year is no different, but in looking at the models that came out of CES and where the GPS world has changed I think that it can boil it down to four things:
1) Connected GPS - With Dash going pre-sale recently, TomTom launching TomTom HD in the Netherlands, and now Magellan getting on the connected bandwagon, there is a strong move to the connected GPS. Now it remains to be seen if the market will develop for a unit that is at the high end of the market in terms of price and comes with a monthly fee. See my post on Connected GPS: The Next Generation.
2) BIGGER SCREENS - A lot of GPS makers must have been at the same focus group. While Garmin had the StreetPilot 7200 out a while ago with a 7 inch screen, these new units are coming out with a nice in-between size of 4.8 - 5.2 inches. Noticeably larger than the widescreen units on the market today. The Garmin Nuvi 5000 is the biggie in their line now. With all that screen real estate, I wonder how the battery life will be driving all of those beautiful pixels.
3) Better traffic with Historical Average Speeds - the capability to jam down a database of historical average speeds onto a GPS has been there for a while now, but has not debuted. With the advent of higher bandwidth connections and Historical Average Speeds, traffic solutions will take a big jump; combine that with a connected GPS model where other drivers act as traffic probes, and you;ve got a step change over the TMC solution on the market today. Magellan Maestro Elite 5340 + GPRS has Historical Average Speeds as a feature. Also Navteq announced that they are working with Intellinav to put historical average speeds on devices..... that's two makers with historical average speeds supplied by Navteq, the map maker for Garmin; their entry must be on the way.
4) 3-D Mapping - Forgot to mention this in the original version, but three dimensional maps with renderings of buildings and terrain are coming to the US, and hopefully soon. TeleAtlas is collecting info on what buildings look like, and is including it in Maps of the US. NavnGo demo'd the capability at CES; they currently supply several GPS makers with software. They also use TeleAtlas maps. It is expected that true 3-D with renderings of buildings will make for an easier navigation experience through urban areas.
Magellan let a press release drop on the Maestro Elite 5340 + GPRS and it includes some detail that was lacking in the mainstream previously. The big ideas at work here are the fact that the Maestro 5340 and 5430+GPRS are big-screened (5-inch), have a new interface that includes a “One-Touch” command to make for simpler interactions, integrated Historical Average Speeds for more intelligent routing when traffic slows speeds on the roadways, and in some areas 3-D buildings to offer a better view of what’s around you. When you add the GPRS connectivity over the mobile phone network you also add connected search and a way to get traffic alerts to complement your historical average speed database. The connected search will get you things like weather, and hopefully a gas price search around you, as I found that service on the Nuvi 680 a very helpful capability.
I am definitely looking forward to the next generation of connected units with the Historical Average speeds.
Magellan introduced the Maestro Elite 3270, which features the first state-of-the-art, flat-panel touch-screen display in the portable vehicle navigation industry. This essentially eliminates the plastic frame around the GPS and makes for a sleek new look.
The compact 3.5-inch Maestro Elite 3270 unit features a seamless touch-panel that integrates the newest display technology for a highly responsive screen and an elegant, high-tech look. Even a light touch will instantly get users to the next screen with its high-sensitivity display. Magellan is the first GPS manufacturer to eliminate the plastic bezel housing common to portable navigation devices. The result is an edge-to-edge, completely flat touch display that gives the Maestro Elite 3270 a state-of-the-art, seamless surface with sensitivity and performance superior to anything else on the market today.
Magellan Announces RoadMate 1470, 1440, and 1340
- 4.7-inch screen at $229 
- 4.3-inch screen at $199 (Preorder)
- 3.5-inch screen at $179 (Preorder)
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