You’ve probably already heard that Garmin and Asus have formed a partnership to jointly develop location-aware smartphones. Today we have two news to report from the new company. Let’s roll, shall we?
First, we got the official specs of the G60, aka the original nüvifone. The Garmin-Asus’ smartphone will come with a quad-band GSM radio, HSDPA support, 3 megapixel camera, 3.55-inch 272×480 pixels touchscreen, “advanced mobile HTML web browser,” Wi-FI, and of course a built-in GPS receiver. Naturally, navigation is at the heart of the nüvifone G60, hence the device will come with preloaded maps of North America or Eastern and Western Europe, with millions of points of interest (POIs). In addition, the nüvifone also boasts Ciao!, an LBS app that helps users stay up to date on their friends’ whereabouts and status by linking numerous location-centric social networks.
Then, we learned about a new colorful phone called nüvifone M20 – an all-in-one device powered by Windows Mobile 6.1. Specs wise, there’s a Qualcomm 7200A 528MHz CPU, 2.8-inch VGA (640×480 pixels) touchscreen, 3 megapixel camera, 4Gb or 8Gb of built-in storage, WiFi, HSDPA, accelerometer, GPS. Again, Garmin’s navigation and maps come pre-loaded with the device and so does Ciao! LBS app.
Pricing and availability is unknown at this stage, but they’ve promised to release those details during the first half of 2009. In the meantime, if you happen to attend Mobile World Congress, Garmin-Asus should have both phones at display at their booth #7C37 in Hall 7.