Torrance, Calif. — Alpine lowered the price today of its dockable portable GPS called the Blackbird to $499.95 suggested retail price from $750.
The Blackbird is one of the first portable GPS devices to “dock” with a car video system to become an in-car navigation system with a larger screen, the company said. However, Alpine has delayed for many months the launch of a docking mechanism, called the PMD-DOK1 that allows the Blackbird to dock with video systems. The dock is now due later this month at a suggested retail price of $200.
The Blackbird offers turn by turn directions and optional Navteq real time traffic.
In May, Alpine was ranked as the sixth leading GPS supplier by unit volume in sales to consumers by NPD. Leading in sales were, respectively, Garmin, Tomtom, Magellan, Pioneer and Eclipse.
