Garmin 4210 Just Released - New Features!

CSR_Admin

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Mar 10, 2004
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Garmin has just released their new 4210 with a whole bunch of new features and innovations that further their commitment to bringing the best products to the market. This review will focus on the innovations the 4210 has over teh other units Garmin has put out in this series over the previous year to include the 4212 and 4208.

When I opened the box the first thing I noticed was the flush mount template. My box included 2, not sure if this was a mistake or if all boxes will include 2, but it allows for you to mess up at least once . The neat thing about these new flush mount templates is they have advesive on one side - they are basically a big sticker. So you will not need to tape them in place to draw out your lines to cut. Basically you can put this sticker in place and cut along the line (no more blue tape required).

flush.JPG


The next innovation is including all of the NMEA2000 components. Lowrance has been doing this for a couple of years, but Lowrance actually uses the power cable for the display to power the nmea2000 network. Garmin has gone one step further to include a complete Stand-alone nmea2000 network in the box. It has a power cable (yellow cable in pic), 2 120ohm terminators for each end of the network, 3 T's, a 2' cable to go to the 4210, and a 30' cable to go to the GPS antenna. There is a T for the 4210, a T for the GPS antenna, and a T for the power cable.

wire.JPG


Garmin's new GPS antenna, called a GPS17x NMEA2000, is a nmea2000 antenna. It has a standard NMEA2000 micro-c socket on the bottom of it. In fact all of Garmin's NMEA2000 cables are standard Micro-C. Since you can easily connect the cable to the antenna this allows you more flexibility in running your GPS antenna cable. NMEA2000 cables can be cut and spliced very easily so the GPS cable can be shortened if need be, or run from teh bottom up or top down as required. If you have a real skinny cable run you can cut the connector off and splice it back on.

gps.JPG


Next is what I found to be the coolest innovation. Garmin is now including 3 ways to mount the antenna. The first is the standard threaded base which you can screw to a standard antenna mount.

thread.JPG


The Second is a little plate you can screw to your hardtop or arch (pictured on the right)

mounts.JPG


And the third method of mounting is really cool, it is a platform you can screw to the underside of a surface. You are probably thinking "a gps won't work unless it can see the sky". This is not always true, in fact they can typically see through fiberglass very easily. I can see people using this to mount their antennas under poling platforms, or inside of electronics boxes, or under the top of the dash on an open boat. While this certainly won't be the most popular way to mount the GPS antenna, it sure is mighty nice of them to include it as an option. Garmin is the first to offer such a part.

upside.JPG


The final innovation is the removable top and bottom strips on the front of the display. This allows the unit to be screwed into a flush mount surface from the front. Prior to this you had to insert some threaded rod into the back on Garmin units. This new format will make mounting the unit go a lot easier.

strip.JPG


Finally, here is the unit powered up next to its big brother and little sister, the 4212 on the left, the 4210 in the middle and the 4208 on the right. The cousin 540S is on the far right.

all.JPG
 
Whow!
Very Nice....
I've been waiting for the new designs before I upgrade or add an addition to my old and outdated but still effective Garmin 188C.

I like the 4210.
Is this is the $2,000 to $3,000 range?
 

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