Well folks its’ finally happening – Garmin is out with their own phone. Having their software running on the popular smartphone platform — Windows Mobile and BlackBerry — obviously isn’t enough.
The way we see it, the nuviphone is primarily a portable navigation device (PND) with mobile phone functionality built on top of it. We don’t actually have all the information at this stage — like which platform/OS Garmin’s using — but we’re sure we’ll know more about it following the Mobile World Congress where Garmin is exhibiting.
Anyway, here’s what we know:
- the device sports 3.5″ touchscreen
- HSDPA-enabled
- built-in camera can take both photos and videos. Megapixel count is not known at this stage
- Integrated with Google’s local search and Panoramio picture sharing site
- the homescreen has three large icons – “Call”, “Search” and “View Map” alongside 4 smaller ones – “Browser”, “SMS”, “Email” and “Tools”
- media player can handle MP3, MPEG4 and AAC files
- set for launch in Q3 2008. No price was disclosed.
Other cool features include “Where am I?” functionality which helps users orient in space, as well as the so called “”dude, where’s my car?” feature that tells drivers where they’ve parked their cars by automatically marking the position in which it was last removed from the vehicle mount…
We’ll certainly check Garmin’s booth at Mobile World Congress and in the meantime you may want to: a) visit Garmin’s website; b) check out the full release from here.
