It was a simpler time. The economy was the last thing on most people’s minds, Dane Cook was just a weird annoying guy from Waiting, Galvatron ruled over our comments section with an iron fist… And Garmin announced that it would enter the wireless arena with the soon-to-be released nuvifone. A lot has changed since then but one thing has remained constant over this historic 18-month period — no nuvifone. Believe it or not however, that might actually change in the near future. Despite having a bit of trouble spelling nuvifone, TWICE reports that Garmin is “getting very close” to a carrier launch here in the US. Why the massive delays? Garmin president and COO Cliff Pemble:
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So much for June. During a conference call with analysts last week, Garmin President and COO Cliff Pemble confessed that the nuvifone G60 will be delayed due to technical issues. Stating that creating a smartphone such as the nuvifone G60 is “complicated” and that “bringing one to market that’s built totally from the ground up on a custom Linux platform is not an easy task,” is somewhat of a valid excuse, but we mean c’mon — this handset was announced over 15 months ago and still hasn’t seen the light of day. And you know what that led to? Garmin-ASUS pimping the G60 like it was brand new because of their “strategic alliance”, which so far has amounted to nothing more than vaporware and lots of it. The nuvifone G60 is now slated for a release sometime in 2H09 meaning that Absolutely. No. One. Will. Care.
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It may have taken a year and a half and a second official announcement but it looks like we may finally have word on when the Garmin-ASUS nuvifone is set to hit the streets. Of course we still don’t have any official pricing info or an exact launch date, but a Reuters article from this morning places the nuvifone G60 on store shelves in June. As for which store shelves the G60 will land on, it’s still looking like AT&T is where the smart money is though nothing has been confirmed. The article cites “a source with direct knowledge of the project” in stating that ASUS will issue its first LiMo-powered handset in June. As the M20 runs Windows Mobile it’s a safe bet to presume we’re talking about the G60 here. An AT&T-subsidized, LiMo-fueled, 3G-rocking navigation beast… We want it.
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Garmin and Asus took advantage of Mobile World Congress back in February to announce the second nuvifone-branded handset that will reach market — the nuvifone M20. Despite the fact that the G60 has yet to hit store shelves, Garmin and Asus are seemingly anxious to display the fruits of their joint handset efforts and hey, were not going to complain. The M20 is tiiiiiiiny. Not so tiny that the duo couldn’t stuff a nice bright 2.8-inch VGA (640×480) touchscreen in there, but definitely small compared to other similarly-styled phones. As you would imagine, it’s all about navigation. Garmin uses an exclusive customized version of its GPS navigation software on its handsets — think of it as Garmin Mobile XT but tweaked and fully integrated into the OS. The OS on this little guy by the way, is Windows Mobile 6.1. We found that a bit odd considering Garmin whipped up its own Linux-based OS for the G60 but such is life. Garmin and Asus are actually planning to use a variety of different OSes for their devices, including Android. But we digress.
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Oooooh Garmin. Your nuviphone should have been released eons ago and now you’re staring down the barrel of what looks to be some pretty steep and exciting competition in the Mio Explora K70. Mio made it known late last year that the company was cooking up a mobile handset and it appears as though the Taiwanese GPS company’s entrance into the mobile game will indeed be a sexy one. Specs, Jeeves:
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This report slides into the rare and never sought after ‘uber-rumor’ category as a result of offering nothing in the way of an explanation or even the slightest bit of logic, but if it turns out to be true we’d be pretty bummed. The Asus P565 was one of the few upcoming Windows Mobile 6.1 smartphones we were actually looking forward to playing with. No it wasn’t the overused form factor, generally humdrum specs or the substandard display that drew us in, it was the Marvell TavorP 800 MHz processor. A processing beast like that would have definitely brought some sexy responsiveness to an otherwise often-boggy OS. Alas, Asus’ deal with Garmin announced earlier this month has reportedly rendered the P565 as collateral damage. What the initial reports don’t mention that actually brings this rumor into the realm of possibility is the fact that this handset was to tout some above-average GPS features. Needless to say, such functionality would tread on the Garmin deal and could certainly have lead to the P565’s demise. Either way, we won’t morn the loss too much if this rumor does pan out — there are plenty of other handsets working their way to market over the coming months to get excited about.
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It wasn’t long ago when both Garmin and ASUS announced that they were teaming up to bring the nuvifone G60 to market and promised to out new models soon. True to their word, today the nuvifone M20 was treated to some press release love. Powered by Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional, the M20 touts a quad-band EDGE / tri-band 7.2Mbps HSPA chipset, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 4 to 8 GB of internal memory all under a 2.8″ VGA touchscreen display. Did we miss anything? Oh yes, GPS. Obviously with Garmin working on this thing its something of a sat nav monster and will be able to run your favorite LBS services, though if Garmin-ASUS had their way you’d be using Ciao! which sounds like their alternative to Google Latitude. Still, the M20’s GPS chip will work even without the phone itself being connected to a cellular network meaning you can mount the M20 with the included car dashboard mount (with power cable) and drive around like crazy in the Australian outback without having to fear getting lost. Now where’s that Android nuvifone at?
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