Back in 2005, you needed a standalone GPS device if you wanted a disembodied voice to yell at you when you made a wrong turn. Before smartphones existed, a pocket-size GPS device that was small enough to be convenient for motorcycle and bike use was novel and useful. However, such a device available on the shelf at Walmart in 2017 isn’t so impressive. It’s also not much of a deal.
Reader Patrick is one of the Raiders of the Lost Walmart, a brave team of retail archaeologists who comb through the electronics sections of big-box stores to find gadgets that aren’t just obsolete or just plain old, but are also comically overpriced.
Reader Patrick noticed the Garmin Quest 2, a device first released in 2005, for sale at Walmart. He looked back at the price stickers, noting the rich history. It had been marked $578.76 in May 2009 and in July 2016, and finally discounted a little bit to $350.00 in June of 2017, a few days before he unearthed this artifact.
If you don’t mind having a used unit and downloading the manual online, you can buy this same GPS on eBay for $84.
Or you could spend more than four times that much in the bizarro electronics universe of Walmart.
“Hey, that could just be a photo from 2008!” you might be saying — so here’s a close-up of the dated shelf tag.
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist