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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:06 am Post subject: Garmin ASUS nuvifone M20 Announced |
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Hot on the heels of Garmin's nuvifone G60 announcement last week comes news of yet another nuvifone, the Garmin ASUS nuvifone M20.
Garmin haven't announced what operating system powers the G60 (although it is believed to be Linux) but they have said that this new M20 model is a Windows Mobile device using WM6.1 Professional.
The M20 comes with a dual-band 3.5G/tri-band GSM radio with WiFi (802.11 b/g), internet browser, push email, multi-media, Bluetooth and of course Garmin's SatNav.
A full soft QWERTY keyboard is provided and on the Satnav side it has all the features you would expect of a Garmin device with preloaded mapping and POIs for North America, Eastern and Western Europe or other regions (dependent on territory) . You can also navigate to contacts in the phone and the M20 also has internet local search using Connected Services, a suite of online applications.
This suite can be expanded with other applications such as traffic, weather, flight status, local events, movies and more. Ciao!, a tracker plug-in allows you to locate friends by linking to various location centric social networks via a map interface and you can opt-in and have your nuvifone automatically update location aware social networks.
The M20 has a 2.8" VGA 640x480 display, touch screen, 4Gb/8Gb storage, ActiveSync and a 3 megapixel camera that automatically geotags images.
Pricing and availability has not yet been announced.
_________________ Darren Griffin
Last edited by Darren on Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:17 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:57 pm Post subject: |
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I have to say that I've been out of the Windows Mobile Phone loop for some time but this is one handset that might persuade me back in again! _________________ Darren Griffin |
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mrsmith76 Occasional Visitor
Joined: Nov 16, 2007 Posts: 11
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:11 pm Post subject: |
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I wonder if TomTom Navigator 6 will run on it! |
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MaFt Pocket GPS Staff
Joined: Aug 31, 2005 Posts: 15152 Location: Bradford, West Yorkshire
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 8:32 pm Post subject: |
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mrsmith76 wrote: | I wonder if TomTom Navigator 6 will run on it! |
no reason why not! although the maps will be far newer on mobile xt!
MaFt |
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gatorguy6996 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:04 pm Post subject: |
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The M60 will be using Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system. The G-60 is probably Linux.
According to the press release the "Navigation functions are linked to frequently used applications such as calendar, contacts, email, internet applications and more". Interesting also is that the maps are pre-loaded, and they look as tho they will ship with an active mounting cradle, similar to the 7xx nuvi series. Obvious that it's being positioned as a serious navigation device. It looks to me that this may be Garmin's answer to the TomTom "live" series, offering all the currently planned TT features that I've seen (other than HD traffic, which TT won't offer in North America for quite awhile anyway) and much more. With the included mounting cradle, it will operate and mount much as the current nuvi line, with numerous added "live" features from social networking and live traffic to common gas price and weather services.
If these do what they are supposed to, they look to be the first serious challenge to a stand-alone pnd. Only drawback that I see right off is the smallish screen. But iPhone users seem like they'd be happy if they had a real nav app on their small screen. By using an active mount, battery life is not much of an issue (and I betcha the mount fits the Garmin beanbag), pre-loaded maps saves a lot of data requests and delays, and if they're using the Garmin mobile app as their starting point for navigation, it's very customizable, top-notch IMO. I've been using it for about a month on my Blackberry. Until now I've been kinda ho-hum about the nuviphone. Now I'm anxious to take a look. Sure would solve a lot of issues, tho it's been noted they're not positioning this, at least for now, as a pedestrian device. _________________ Garmin 1695 / 255 / 760 w/MSN - Droid w/Google nav + Navigon - Navigon 8100T - Dakota10 - GPSMap76C - GeoMate Jr. |
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gatorguy6996 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:05 pm Post subject: |
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Apology for the double-post. My browser wasn't cooperating. Don't you just love Microsoft? _________________ Garmin 1695 / 255 / 760 w/MSN - Droid w/Google nav + Navigon - Navigon 8100T - Dakota10 - GPSMap76C - GeoMate Jr. |
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Darren Frequent Visitor
Joined: 11/07/2002 14:36:40 Posts: 23848 Location: Hampshire, UK
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 10:14 pm Post subject: |
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gatorguy6996 wrote: | The M60 will be using Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional operating system. |
Didn't I say that in the opening post
I wonder if we should speculate on the M and G designations though? M for Windows Mobile and G for Google phone perhaps
Seriously though I'm told it is Linux for the G60. Next one in the pipeline should be Android though. _________________ Darren Griffin |
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gatorguy6996 Frequent Visitor
Joined: Feb 16, 2008 Posts: 695 Location: Florida, USA
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Posted: Thu Feb 12, 2009 11:22 pm Post subject: |
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Sorry Darren, speed reading is my occasional enemy. Overlooked that entirely.
Something that would surprise me is if Garmin is using their standard Mobile XT app. Since the maps are preloaded, I would think more of a hybrid mobile/nuvi app would serve them better. _________________ Garmin 1695 / 255 / 760 w/MSN - Droid w/Google nav + Navigon - Navigon 8100T - Dakota10 - GPSMap76C - GeoMate Jr. |
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