April 13, 2007

Garmin to use SiRFstarIII chip in nuvi 200 series

Sirflogo GPS Business News is reporting that Garmin will be using the SiRFstar III LP chipset in their upcoming nuvi 200 series, rather than a MediaTek product.

This directly contradicts Craig Ellison's trashing of the nuvi 250 on PCMag.com, for losing satellite lock indoors, a lame excuse for his 3 star review (IMHO):

I also noticed that my 250 test unit did not use a state-of-the-art SiRFStarIII receiver module such as the one found in the 350. Garmin describes the 250's receiver, without a brand name, as simply a "sensitive GPS receiver," which sounds to me as if the company has cut costs on it. That might be why the 250 displayed fewer signal-strength bars and lost satellite lock indoors more easily than the 350. That said, I didn't experience reception problems on my road tests.

Now maybe he had a pre-production unit with a different chipset. Then again, if it was a MediaTek, they've been getting pretty good reviews. Hopefully, Garmin will clarify this in the near future.

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Apr 13, 2007 11:51:20 PM | Garmin, The business of GPS

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