Garmin Nuvifone to Be Made by ASUS

One of the richest-featured touchscreen handsets to come out this year, Garmin nuvifone, will not be manufactured by Garmin, as many of us have initially thought. Apparently, the nuvifone will be made by ASUS, the giant Taiwanese company that produces, among other things, Pocket PCs, smartphones, notebooks, motherboards and so on.

ASUS (ASUSTeK Computer Inc., in its full name) has come up lately with several really nice handsets: P320, M536, P560 and the exquisite ZX1, made in collaboration with Lamborghini, the famous Italian luxury sports car manufacturer. Knowing this, the nuvifone will most probably be a better device than if it had been made by Garmin itself.

Based in Kansas, USA, Garmin is famous for its GPS-related products and technologies. Its first device to fall into the "mobile phone" category, the nuvifone, will be a hybrid between a smartphone and a navigation device, coming with the following features: a 3.5 inch touchscreen display, Wi-Fi, GSM and 3G connectivity, full HTML browser, advanced email capabilities, Music and video players and a good photo camera. Plus, of course, high-end GPS capabilities, with maps, Google search, easy to use navigation menus and so on. Well, according to DigiTimes, ASUS is the company to combine all these into the nuvifone, while Garmin will take care of the GPS and navigation aspects.

The nuvifone is said to hit the market in the third quarter of this year (July, August or even September), for a retail price of around $500 (about 320 Euros). If released before the fall, the GPS smartphone will be a serious threat to Apple's new iPhone 3G as well as for all the other high-end touchscreen handsets announced to come this summer (like HTC Touch Diamond, Samsung Omnia or Sony Ericsson Xperia X1). We're now waiting for an official announcement from Garmin or ASUS to confirm the rumor of the latter manufacturing the nuvifone.