GPS semi-thwartage
Recently, my little auto GPS started flaking out. We had originally gotten this one for Jaedan, then decided to put a built-in in her car instead, and so I inherited the other and put it in my vehicle. I've gotten rather fond of it - the bluetooth and MP3 playing are actually nice bonuses for me, and while I don't need the directions often, I now find it vaguely disturbing to be driving along and not know my position (and what streets are nearby) to within a few meters.
Fortunately, it was under an extended warrenty. Unfortunately, that was from Circuit City. Thus the title of this post... I returned it for repairs, they sent it off to the shop for two weeks, called back the night before I was leaving for London for a week, and said it was not repairable and I should go into a store for a refund/replacement. Meanwhile, Circuit City is going chapter 11 (or is that 7? the doom one, anyway). (As an aside, I suspect it could have been repaired in 10 minutes with a soldering iron - it was almost certainly just a loose headphone jack - but I suspect their 'repairs' are limited to swapping batteries and reflashing the firmware...)
So, the day after I get back, I go into the madhouse that is now Circuit City. They have marked everything back up to SRP, marked it down 15%, and called it a going-out-of-business-sale. Oddly, all the best stuff has been cleaned out at what was undoubtedly higher than their regular prices. The staff are wandering around like, well, like a bunch of people who know they'll all be laid off in another month. After some debate, the customer service people decide I can (according to standing policy) only get store credit for the original purchase price (which, to be fair, is a lot more than that unit is worth today).
Possibly what I should have done then was bought several Nintendo DSs, drove over to Gamestop and sold them there. Instead, I bought their top-of-the-line GPS as well as I could figure from their ransacked display, then took it home and realized that while it has a fine mapping features, and voice-activated controls, it doesn't actually have bluetooth. Bah.
Looking at amazon, it looks like the model I really want (I don't care about voice-control) is a bit less than that, so I suppose I'll try to flip that unit on... Amazon? Ebay? Craigslist? What's the done thing there?
Alternately, if anybody here is interested in a Garmin 850, any reasonable offer will be accepted, and all unreasonable offers will be strongly considered... normal price on those new is about $399.