Hands-on with the Garmin nuvifone
By Joshua Topolsky 
posted January 30th 2008 8:32PM
posted January 30th 2008 8:32PM
posted January 30th 2008 8:32PM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
Pretty quick hands on, maybe next time an unboxing before the device is announced
I hope they fine tune the design of it before they release it such as:
-speaker grill should use fine mesh covering instead of grill-like slots
-all ports should be covered in some way (one flap is all it takes to cover up usb port)
other then that I wouldn't mind being seen using it. Although in the pics it looks VERY generic because of the black color, I spy hints of sparkles in the plastic which is a nice touch. If they add more colors (silver and/or white perhaps?) I'm sure it would be nice. All in all Garmin has managed to catch my interest and I will be looking out for more info.
To all of you who are carping that Garmin has ripped off Apple or copied the features/specs of the iPhone why don't you just SHUT UP, since you obviously don't know what you are talking about. It took Apple at least two years to go from project charter to selling the iPhone in stores (according to the Wired article). It likely took Garmin at least as long, maybe longer. If Garmin is just showing off a non-functioning unit today it would mean they would have begun work before the iPhone was unveiled.
Having had some arms-length contact with Garmin's dev process in a prior life, I can say for certain that they are very meticulous about their R&D process and not afraid to delay a unit if they are not getting something right. I could be wrong and maybe they plowed all their money from selling GPSs into a crash course phone development schedule, but I sort of doubt it. Garmin's market position is to sell well-designed products at a premium. It's not like there aren't other GPS phones on the market, just as there are lots of other GPSs that are much cheaper. If Garmin wanted to replicate this market control in the super-competitive, carrier-controlled smartphone market the way to do it would not be rushing out a hunk of crap that will be obsolete in 6 months. If they just wanted to get something out they could have gone the WinMo route and that would be that.
My guess is that Garmin began working on this around the same time as Apple and with the same goal: leverage their engineering and capital assets to build an above-par phone that they can sell for an above-par price based on said engineering reputation and brand. Given that Garmin has been consistently moving from the vertical enthusiast market (boating, mountaineering, aviation) towards the mass consumer market over the past 10 years, a phone is no surprise. Smart phones are today what a GPS was 4-5 years ago; an expensive device for people with some technical inclination and money to spend. Same goal as Apple, same target market and probably the same price point, but doubtful that this is any sort of copy or rip-off.
Your post is Garmin fanboy-ism to the extreme, and makes no sense. You say it took Apple 2 years to develop the iPhone, which was revealed in Jan 2007. The Garmin phone is due out in 3Q 2008, which is 1.75 years after the iPhone, and with the iPhone having demonstrated the feasibility of such phones, it stands to reason that it will take imitators slightly less time to rip-off the iPhone, than it took Apple to make it without the benefit of a working model. If, as you suggest, Garmin had started work on this as the same time as Apple, why did it not come out at the same time (or even in the same ballpark), as the iPhone? So I suggest you take your own advice and just SHUT UP. Thanks for playing.
Ugh, how can you compare this to an iphone. First of all it looks like so cheap and plasticy. At least throw in a soft-touch rear housing, or maybe some gloss to break things up. And the recessed, matte screen is no where near the quality of the iphones flush optical glass screen. And the plastic speaker grill looks particularly bad.
I do like that it has a large screen, even bigger than the iphones. And having a true GPS with gigs of local maps should be amazing. Hopefully it's quad-band so you can travel with it. I mean it's got pretty much everything one could want, why make it look like some cheap Chinese knock off?
btw... I'm not a fanboy and I don't own an iphone.
Someone can't afford a real camera? Look like it's taking from a mobile phone camera.
the photo is probably taken from the 'working' iphone camera...
I am happy with my iphone and unlocked mio C320..
Personally, I like having a GPS unit seperate from my phone..
and god, that matte-like touch screen just screams GPS.. blah
Is the screen not flush because it's a pressure touch screen? As opposed to iPhone's electrical current interruption screen.
of course no love for Sprint.
:\
3g, a gps that actualy will work, im in, i got rid of my iphone after a month, curently using a htc advantage (gps sucks on advantage) i will get this one asap, but please at least 8 gig with one card slot
So Strange. Half the mac fanboys say "Total iPhone Ripoff! It has a...Screen...and it calls people...and you touch it!" The other half are saying "It's nothing like the iPhone! There's no gloss, it's plasticy, the screen is recessed!" One group is complaining it's too much like the iPhone, the other says it's not enough like it. What do you want?
I really like the look of this. I think a GPS with a built in phone is a better overall concept then a phone with crappy triangulation technology wedged in to try to meet a need that should have been addressed in the original design. I do think that apple has had a large (positive) effect on the cell phone market, I don't think, though, that all progress will stop until the iPhone 2 comes out. It's good a company like Garmin is stepping up!
So let me get this straight, b/c this device is a phone with a touchscreen and Internet connectivity, it's an iPhone clone? WTF?
Haven't there been Internet-capable touchscreen smartphones based on Windows Mobile available for years now?
The only thing that sets the iPhone apart from other smartphones is its UI and beautifully simplistic design which Apple always excels at.
Anyone that says otherwise and calls all phones that come after the iPhone a "clone" is a straight up idiot.
When will these losers learn to design their own phones!?
Since you guys had a chance to look it over can you give us some details?
Does it look like to back comes off for a user replaceable battery? (it looks like it). Does it have a slot for a flash memory card? I think I see a mini-USB port, what other connectivity does it have? Did you see what was behind that little door on the side?
You must have taken those crappy photos with the iPhone, didn’t you?
I can't see this really becoming a huge product like the iPhone, Blackberry, etc. Garmin should stick to GPS units. Why would they even bother entering a saturated market when they have very little experience at all? That would be like Apple making a pho... Nevermind.
OK seriously, it doesn't look bad at all. The big deciding factors will be price, carrier, and interface. Good luck with the device Garmin!
"Check the gallery below for some close-up action with a non-working model"
as in
Check the gallery below for a plastic mock up.
No news here... move along.
Now add the ability to store and play Mp3s, PDA Functionality, an FM Modulator, Bluetooth and you would have my dream device. Please Someone make this!
I think Engadget should do some coverage on the Garmin nuvifone.
Has there been any news on a built in music and/or video player?
I've used plenty of internet capable cell phones but I've never considered any of them to be "browser capable".(until I purchased an iPhone.) Using a Microsoft browser on a small cell phone sized screen is highly problematic and is simply not practical except in rare circumstances. The type is too small, it's too hard to navigate around the page and some pages don't display properly at all. Who cares about 3G if you can't read web pages? This is one of the iPhones greatest advantages. Until someone else can mimmick that particular capability, I'll stick with my iPhone.
i m ready to buy can you mail me the price and where i can get it..
Your post is Garmin fanboy-ism to the extreme, and makes no sense. You say it took Apple 2 years to develop the iPhone, which was revealed in Jan 2007. The Garmin phone is due out in 3Q 2008, which is 1.75 years after the iPhone, and with the iPhone having demonstrated the feasibility of such phones, it stands to reason that it will take imitators slightly less time to rip-off the iPhone, than it took Apple to make it without the benefit of a working model. If, as you suggest, Garmin had started work on this as the same time as Apple, why did it not come out at the same time (or even in the same ballpark), as the iPhone? So I suggest you take your own advice and just SHUT UP. Thanks for playing.
The comment above was meant as a reply to "John" of "Garmin started developing this phone at the same time as Apple" fame.
OMG Someone actually came out with a touchscreen phone that actually has an interface that looks good and doesn't totally rip off the iphone interface. I have an iphone but I'm very interested to see how this device turns out. I like the features but they could work on the case a little more looks kinda cheap for something that will probably cost $$$$.
It looks sweet but I'd like to check out the user interface. Having bought and used two Garmin Forerunners I can say that their implementation of an 'interface' if you can even call it that - is woefully inadequate. The Forerunners work well GPS-wise, but I'd swear I was looking at my Apple //e in terms of user interface. I'm not expecting anything fancy or pretty while running, but some common sense interface would be welcome.
it looks very cheap.
This is a product of suits sitting around a table trying to cash in on cell phone
market. People want a phone that has gps; they do not want a gps that has a phone.
I wonder, is it going to run googles Android platform?
Will it's soft be open-source?
Is it going to cost $75/month to be used?
You have got to be joking.
This looks exactly what I would expect the non-Apple version of the iPhone to look like.
A crappy knock-off, clad in clunky, ugly plastic, with an ugly name.
This thing probably runs Windows, right?
Apple interests me because they apply design to a functional device.
Form and function.
I'm happy with my device because it did what I wanted it to do for me out of the box.
The fact that I can mod my iPhone is a bonus.
And who took those pictures? Most of them are out of focus and blurry.
Guess it makes the thing look better...
you would be soooo pissed if they said these pictures where taken with an iphone.
i no all
so its (design wise) an iPhone with a matte finish?
I can live with that...
Ugly.
this thing looks much better up close...it's built really well and feels really good in your hands. Personally, I think it's slightly smaller than the iphone. (mainly in width, otherwise it's about equal) it is a GSM phone.
Recessed screen for a phone that you want to stick in your pocket = bad. The edges catch things and you can't get into the corners to clean it. The iPhone is sexy, but crippled and useless.
High speed data = good.
2 or 3 mp camera = ok
I'll give you $500 - $600
Give me 5 mp camera with a 5x optical zoom, and you can have my $600 - $800 now.
Fix the recessed screen at least, give me decent text input, a good HTML browser, and you will get my money anyway.
go easy on the design, it is not complete as there will be some polishing up for sure. A NUVI out of the box can be understood by anyone in seconds, the GUI is slkurnshit and without a doubt the browser will be just as cexy.
I DARE garmin to offer this straight to the consumer by-passing the carriers and the gestapo tactics. HA, take that. Pop in the SIM and off I roam like a B-52.
For the ones moaning about the recessed screen maybe you should get out more, get drunk and lay down on a brick paved road so you to will see the groove feels rather good. My trusty 8525 with its sunken screen works just great. Don't know what an 8525 is? Well whip out your iphoo and copy and paste 8525 into google. OH WAIT! You cant copy and paste on an iphoo.... silly me.
strap a nuvi to your wrist, of course the FR is basic it's a training assistant for bread crumbing....