Garmin surprised many yesterday with an announcement that they are going to be releasing a mobile phone based on their successful Nuvi GPS platform. First off, let me say that the hardware specs seems pretty excellent:
It has a proprietary Garmin OS, HSDPA, Quad-band GSM, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, and a 3.5” touchscreen.
The software seems to be broken down into the following user behaviors: web browsing, messaging, phone calls and navigation. To no one’s surprise, Google apps find their way onto the device with some interesting location integration.
While they don’t get into the quality of the camera, the combination of photo/video recording leads to some potentially very interesting applications:
This phone itself has both a still image and a video camera with the images automatically being geo-tagged. Once the image is taken and geo-tagged, you can send it to someone else with one of these phones and they can navigate to where you are, or you can save the picture and navigate back to the spot from the picture.
And finally, they seem to have implemented a feature that Dennis and I had always wanted on phones: the equivalent of an “I am here” button built into the device:
Two more things on the GPS topic, first off, there is a Where Am I function that tells you exactly where you are (coordinates) and lists the closest streets while also offering directions to the closest hospital, police station, or gas station. The second point is that it works almost exactly like a regular Garmin Nuvi navigation unit with great maps, voice directions, and everything being controlled via touchscreen.
It remains to be seen if this phone can be the “iPhone killer” than many are certain to label it as but so far, Garmin’s first entry into the space looks like a compelling one. Personally, as someone who’s really learned to love the interface on my iPhone and the way all the apps work together, I have to reserve my judgement until I see the software in action.
Garmin Nuvifone is the phone of my dreams - SlashGear
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