James wrote:
Julie, I don't believe that you understood or answered his question.
One unit without the gps costs more than another brand which includes the
gps. His question is WHY ?

James

James, you haven't answered his question either, which puts a great deal
of doubt on the matter of you understanding his question as well. At
this point Julie has at least attempted to answer his question, a bit
more useful than being critical of someone's attempt to help, YMMV.

Tom, the more expensive choice is that way because instead of
engineering and manufacturing as a unit it has to be designed to work
with and without the options as well as having more production runs to
build each of the options in addition to building the initial unit. Add
to that the difference in features and the difference in when they were
designed, later models benefit from previous engineering, better
predictions of how long it takes to get to market, parts supply times,
etc etc.

Not to mention Icom prices as they see fit for their own purposes, be
they numbers of units in stock, how big the production runs were, what
the exchange rates were at the times of import and sale, which units
they really want in use...