14 DAY TRIAL // Garmin-Asus, the joint venture between Garmin Ltd. and ASUSTeK Computer Inc., has announced today that the Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 and nuvifone M20 will become available for purchase on the Asian market in the near future. To be more precise, the G60 will go on sale in Taiwan on July 27 and will become available for purchase in Singapore and Malaysia by the end of August, while the M20 is expected to come to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia in August.
“We can’t wait for our customers to start using a nuvifone,” said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO. “Our lives are all about location. The nuvifone is designed around that premise and that’s what differentiates it from the myriad of other phones on the market.” Benson Lin, Asus vice president and general manager of Handheld Business Group, added: “Whether it’s talking and navigating simultaneously, geotagging a photograph or navigating to an address on the web, the nüvifone seamlessly links navigation with other commonly performed activities.”
The main features of the new devices are their navigation capabilities, as both handsets come with touchscreen displays and with three primary icons, “Call,” “Search” and “View Map.” In addition, they also sport built-in accelerometers, as well as preloaded maps of North America, Eastern and Western Europe, or specific Asia-Pacific regions. Users will benefit from turn-by-turn voice-prompted directions, from millions of preloaded points of interest (POIs), and of a feature that enables them to find out their latitude and longitude coordinates.
The specification list of nuvifone G60 shows quad-band GSM / GPRS / Edge 850/900/1800/1900 and 3G 850/1900/2100 HSDPA 3.6 Mbps connectivity, as well as Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, Bluetooth and mini-USB 2.0, a 3.55-inch anti-glare resistive touchscreen display that offers support for up to 65K colors, a 3-megapixel photo snapper with auto-focus and geo-tagging functionalities, HTML browser based on Webkit platform, support for email (POP3 / IMAP4 / SMTP) and SMS, as well as up to 4 hours of talk time provided by its battery.
The nuvifone M20 comes with a 2.8-inch TFT display with touch lens, able to offer support for 65K colors, a 3-megapixel photo snapper that also sports auto-focus and geo-tagging, OPERA browser, HTML, WAP 1.2.1/2.0, support for Push / Enterprise / POP3 / IMAP4 / SMTP email and for SMS / MMS / IM, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and A2DP, 802.11 b/g WLAN, mini USB 2.0, as well as tri-band GSM / GPRS / Edge 900/1800/1900 and 900/2100 HSPA 7.2 Mbps connectivity. The handset runs under Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 OS, while the G60 comes with Linux.
After it becomes available on the market in Taiwan on July 27, the G60 is also expected to come to other markets in Europe and Asia during the second half of the ongoing year. At the same time, the nuvifone M20 will be launched in the aforementioned markets in August, with European availability expected to come later in 2009. Both mobile phones will be sold via carriers and retail channels, Garmin-Asus announced, though no exact details on pricing and future availability have been unveiled.