14 DAY TRIAL // Garmin and Asus announced about a half a year ago their plans to come to the market with a series of new mobile phones, among which the nuvifone G60 and M20 were included, yet they have delayed the release of the devices over and over again, making us believe at a certain point that the handsets wouldn't come this year after all. However, according to the latest news around the Web, the joint venture might finally ramp up for the launch of its devices in Asia, on the markets in Singapore and Malaysia.
The new devices come to the market with enhanced navigation capabilities, and are expected to take off within the next 30 days, as mobilehornet points out. For what it's worth, the upcoming devices will include some more functionality than just the navigation features. While the nuvifone G60 will include a Linux-based OS when arriving, the nuvifone M20 will come with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6.1 platform, though there are no details on whether it will also see WinMo 6.5 or not.
The specifications list of nuvifone G60 shows a Quad-band GSM / GPRS / Edge 850/900/1800/1900 connectivity and 850/1900/2100 HSDPA 3.6 Mbps 3G capabilities, as well as the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g and mini-USB 2.0, not to mention the 3.55-inch WQVGA display (272 x 480-pixel resolution, 65K colors), the 3-megapixel camera with auto-focus and geo-tagging capabilities, 4GB of internal memory, a MicroSD memory card slot with support for 16GB of additional storage space, POP3 / IMAP4 / SMTP support, an HTML browser, an MP3 player and a 1100 mAh battery.
The nuvifone M20 comes with a Qualcomm 7200A 528MHz processor, a 2.8-inch touchscreen that boasts a 640 x 480 pixel resolution and support for 65K colors, a 3-megapixel photo snapper that also includes auto-focus, vide-recording and geo-tagging capabilities, 4GB or 8GB of internal memory, an accelerometer, the Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, a mini USB 2.0, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g, a 920 mAh Lithium battery, the OPERA browser, and ActiveSync for Outlook contacts, calendar, media and documents.
The phones are expected to become available in Malaysia for RM1,799, the G60, and RM2,099, the M20.