Considering what this car kit/mount includes, the $120 price is only a little bit high. Furthermore, anyone who had any sense at all and who had been watching the discussions concerning the TomTom car kit already knew a month ago that the car kit was going to cost over $100 (by itself, without the app). Here is what you get with the hardware alone:
1.) A more accurate and responsive GPS receiver (TomTom says it will be better than what is in the iPhone -- we'll have to wait and see on this, but that is one "feature" that will be unique on the iPhone -- at least for the time being).
2.) An improved speaker and microphone to support hands-free calling (once again, TomTom says that it will work better than the built-n speaker/mic on the iPhone -- I can pretty much believe this since it can be hard to hear the iPhone's speaker while driving). There is also a conveniently located toggle-switch to help control the volume.
3.) In-car iPhone charger.
4.) Aux audio output port.
5.) In-car window mount (looks interesting -- we'll have to see if it works better than some of the cheaper, simple window mounts).
Let's assign some prices to each hardware component (as it they were separate items, cost to consumer, not just the manufacturing cost):
GPS receiver - $20 (hard to estimate as they are offering just the bare chip, not a complete GPS unit)
Hands-free speaker and microphone (Bluetooth?) - $40
Window mount and in-car charger - $30
Convenience factors, volume control, audio out port, etc. - $10
Total: $100
As far as I can see, the real "problem" with this device as a bundle is that the TomTom iPhone app is way too expensive. If the TomTom app was say $40 and if it offered a few more features than it did today then the car kit and app bundle would be fairly decent (or at least somewhat competitive with what you can find in a dedicated GPS).
The reason, IMO, that the app is priced so high is that TomTom doesn't want to cannibalize the sales of their dedicated GPS units. The same is probably true of Navigon (priced at $90) since Navigon also makes dedicated GPS units (for Europe, they've quit the U.S. GPS hardware market). It's probably no coincidence that the two highest-priced GPS apps are by the two companies that also make and sell dedicated GPS devices.
Frankly, if they improved the TomTom app from what it is today then I think the car kit and app bundle would be worth about $150 versus today's price of $120 + $100 = $220. So, yes, the bundle is about $70 overpriced and most of that is because of the high price of the app.
As a price-point comparison to the TomTom app I offer these two alternatives:
CoPilot Live - $35 (Does just about everything that the higher-priced apps do and comes from a well-established company in the mobile GPS marketplace).
MotionX Drive - $2.99 (Includes one month of prepaid turn-by-turn, realtime GPS navigation, thereafter $2.99 per month or $25 per year. This app has gotten rave reviews since it debut about one week ago, only problem is that you need an always available wireless network connection -- 3G highly recommended -- and the turn-by-turn features are by subscription only. But $25 per year isn't too bad if you have reliable wireless network coverage. AT&T's similar turn-by-turn GPS service is $10 per month or $100 per year.).
It would also be it's own standalone GPS.
