Coming from an understanding of digital photography where new products and competition in general in high, how often do manufacturers come out with new products? If I wait a few months might the wait be worth it in new and exciting advances?
Steve
Product life cycle depends on the type of product you are looking at: consumer or business. For consumer radios, most manufacturers (Cobra, Midland, and Uniden) release new models every year, typically in the spring, and discontinue all previous models. Motorola is a slight exception. Their product life cycle is typically 2 years, discontinuing half of their line and coming out with some fresh products yearly (still in the spring). At this point, all consumer radio manufacturers have already transitioned to the 2008 product line, so new models won’t begin hitting the market for another 8 months or so.
Business radios are typically around for 3-5 years. Motorola has just recently stopped producing their popular XTN radio series, replacing them with the RDX series. I do not anticipate Motorola replacing this lineup for several years, and I expect it will be a year or two before we see anything new from Kenwood.