Video: Garmin's Nuvifone flicked into action

It's one thing to describe a UI, it's another to see it in action. Laptop Mag just posted nearly 5 minutes of finger-flicking, auto-rotating, rubber banding video of Garmin's hotly anticipated Nuvifone. There's even a brief glimpse of the touch keyboard in all its landscape, predictive text glory. Sure Garmin only showed the working aspects of the not-ready-for-prime-time prototype. Regardless, it's enough to keep us impressed and awaiting the Q4 release. Video just beyond the read link.

[Jimmy Jones @ Jun 18th 2008 1:11AM]

$499.99 might be a bit much considering the smartphone market ...phone/gps/multimedia all-in-one devices coming out lately....

[poulan @ Jun 18th 2008 4:26AM]

It's a Garmin thing like with Sony, they think the consumer gives a shit because of their brand name.

[mike @ Jun 18th 2008 6:04AM]

Garmin has no brand name.

[David @ Jun 18th 2008 6:22AM]

Bear in mind that $199 is the subsidized price of the iPhone.

This Garmin would be a lot cheaper on contract.

[Izzy @ Jun 18th 2008 8:32AM]

Garmin is not a brand name like "GE" or "Ford" but it is still a brand name, as is TomTom. Both Garmin and TomTom make good products, and they each have their own strengths (I have both). The Nuviphone looks interesting, but as others have said the price point (unsubsidized) seems high at this point.

[OneLove @ Jun 18th 2008 10:40AM]

Any site that forces you to look at an AD is worthless to me. 3...2..1..seconds before the site appears??? Is this the 30 trial version of the website? I expected more from laptop magazine.

[OneLove @ Jun 18th 2008 10:44AM]

WOW, The videos don't work and the server crashes. lol.

Internal Server Error - The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

[Striker @ Jun 18th 2008 1:14AM]

Here comes clak describing how much this sucks and why the iPhone 3G is sooooooooo much better.

[imacmatt09 @ Jun 18th 2008 1:17AM]

Clak is a loser. He probably won't be on tonight to comment because its past his bed time.

[Striker @ Jun 18th 2008 1:19AM]

Thank God he won't be here, I wonder if Ryan can arrange an IP ban for people like clak and McBUNT.

[Jimmy Jones @ Jun 18th 2008 1:35AM]

He lost a bet to his gf... [that has to be the case..] :-)

[Striker @ Jun 18th 2008 1:45AM]

What girlfriend? She must be really ugly to be dating clak.

[Alex P. @ Jun 18th 2008 1:35AM]

Just a heads up. If you're using ad blocking software on your browser (webkit/safari for me) then the video doesn't appear. I'm not sure if it behaves like that in firefox because adblock isn't out for Firefox 3.0 yet (that i know of)

[Striker @ Jun 18th 2008 1:46AM]

AdBlock is out for Firefox 3, I am using it right now and the video doesn't work. Suck it, Apple! Just imagine if everybody used AdBlock and made your advertising money go to waste!

[Striker @ Jun 18th 2008 1:57AM]

Nevermind, I meant FlashBlock, but that stops the ad as well.

[Alex P. @ Jun 18th 2008 2:03AM]

@striker
What do you mean by "suck it, Apple!'" what does Apple have to do with ads?

[Striker @ Jun 18th 2008 2:59AM]

I thought you were talking about the Apple synchronized ads that don't play on Firefox 3.

[Jamma @ Jun 18th 2008 6:15AM]

Adblock plus is out for ff3, i'm using it now. with the filterset g. updater, i haven't seen an ad in ages

[Squid7085 @ Jun 18th 2008 8:40AM]

Yeah, took me like an hour to figure that out. :-/ Ended up firing up Firefox and instantly when it loaded the video I realized why.

>Seth

[JOSE @ Jun 18th 2008 1:35AM]

ill gladly replace my garmin nuvi200 with that nuvifone anyday of the week bring it on!!! pop that baby in and slap it on the windshield lol

[Darren @ Jun 18th 2008 1:54AM]

As we all know, touch-screen typing is virtually impossible without an excellent auto-correct system running the background to fix your many, many typos. But the auto-correct system can't do its job if you can't at least hit the space bar reliably to separate the words.

With such a tiny space bar on this thing it will be nearly impossible for people to type even a short, barely-coherent sms message. But I guess those who care about such things wouldn't consider buying an iPhony in the first place.

[PEZ @ Jun 18th 2008 7:18AM]

SURELY, you are speaking for yourself when you say "people"? It took me all of 3 minutes to get used to touch typing on a virtual keyboard. I think you are just afraid. Very afraid in fact. Aaawe!

[Evangelion @ Jun 18th 2008 2:06AM]

:)

[gabe @ Jun 18th 2008 2:36AM]

woo hoo fire fox 3 - not sure how ur much different but okay now

[Hawkman @ Jun 18th 2008 3:43AM]

What a horrible, horrible website. Ugh. Flash everywhere.

So I didn't view the video because the page nearly killed my browser (Flash on the Mac sucks so hard), but... looks like there are big labels on the touch keys that show when you hit them. Is there prior art for this, or did Apple come up with it and everyone since is just ripping them off? Just curious.

[David @ Jun 18th 2008 6:18AM]

OR.. Macs suck hard at flash.

[Squid7085 @ Jun 18th 2008 8:42AM]

No, Adobe just has a s*itty Mac Flash client. When a software program doesn't run well, its normally the software developer to blame. Now if it runs well and the OS is updated causing problems, then it is the OS.

[TABi @ Jun 18th 2008 4:10AM]

would like to try it

[duxxyuk @ Jun 18th 2008 5:11AM]

Video doesn't work.... that said my browser hates ads..

[jaymol @ Jun 19th 2008 5:14AM]

I never thought it was so interesting

[Squid7085 @ Jun 18th 2008 8:45AM]

The video is a bit hard to watch, but gets the point across. I for one am looking forward to seeing this phone hit the streets, I don't plan to buy one, as I am attached to my iPhone. However, serious competition like this, and especially with a full functioning GPS, turn by turn, POI, ect. in it, it will put serious pressure on Apple to make decent GPS software (Or a third party) I love my Garmin GPS, and I expect nothing from the best from this company. Look forward to seeing the final product.

[RyanTV @ Jun 18th 2008 9:21AM]

now would Garmin PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD send an update that would make my Nuvi 660 Navigator have a QWERTY keyboard instead of the ABCDEFG madness that it does now?!?!

[tptjung @ Jun 18th 2008 9:35AM]

But the important thing is that this unit os "so...very...beyoootiful....iss very beyooootiful." But in all seriousness....it seems like an interesting concept. Obviously more GPS-centric.

[Victor @ Jun 18th 2008 8:47PM]

Its a shame tha Garmin thinks that a phone is only GPS, theres more than that.

That price of $499 would be the dead sentence of it.

[twistfunk @ Jun 18th 2008 4:45PM]

wish i could see the web browser and media functions, but this thing seems pretty solid so far