Garmin's Nuvifone teases its way through another trade show

by Paul Miller posted Aug 27th 2008 at 2:50PM

Oh, Nuvifone, how you disappoint us. Over here at IFA we just managed to get a Garmin rep to whip out his Nuvifone prototype for a quick look, but sadly, almost a year after the device was first announced, there really wasn't anything new to see. We still aren't allowed to take video of the interface, or really see much of the phone other than the home screen, and when the rep tried to show us how the Nuvifone kicks the iPhone's ass in navigation, the Nuvi promptly crashed -- so at least those two have that in common. Not that we should be surprised, Garmin mentioned last month that the phone had been delayed into 2009, but we're quickly running out of patience, as well as any scrap of remaining hope for this thing to actually matter when it does arrive. Peep the gallery for a little bit of iPhone 3G versus action.

Gallery: Garmin's Nuvifone teases its way through another trade show

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Handhelds

Tags: features, garmin, ifa, ifa 2008, Ifa2008, nuvifone

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Neutral

Al @ Aug 27th 2008 2:56PM

Motorola must be developing this with all the delays.
It went to a must have to a, "Oh"

Neutral

craig#2 @ Aug 27th 2008 3:06PM

Wouldn't these guys make more money if they just made a Garmin iPhone app?

No, I'm not trolling.. Just dying for a proper turn by turn app, and I haven't been excited about the Nuviphone since the iPhone came out. This is like, so totally Q1 2007!

Neutral

isoSasquatch @ Aug 27th 2008 3:12PM

Battery life icon in the red: bad omen?

Neutral

eyan212 @ Aug 27th 2008 3:23PM

another thing the nuviphone and iPhone have in common!!

Neutral

JMMGoalster @ Aug 27th 2008 3:24PM

or it means they've had it on and using battery-draining functions all day

Neutral

Andreas @ Aug 27th 2008 4:55PM

And it has no GPS coverage it seems. No wonder it crashed.

Neutral

TMFAN @ Aug 27th 2008 3:16PM

Stop with the trade shows and release the damn thing before it becomes outdated.

Neutral

kjb434 @ Aug 27th 2008 3:18PM

Why does the iPhone and this Nuvifone both crash and my WinMo with either Google Map or LiveSearch do GPS and voice operated directions flawlessly?

I'm guessing Android will handle this task with ease too!

Neutral

UnixSystemsEngineer @ Aug 27th 2008 4:28PM

At least tell people to buy a BlackBerry instead of an iPhone. Trying to mislead people into buying a WinMo device is just cruel.

... uhoh, incoming call. Time to bring up the task manager so I can kill a few apps so that the phone app will work...

Neutral

LeMonds @ Aug 27th 2008 3:21PM

looks like it has a short battery life just as the iphone....

low battery icon and it is still light outside? Nostalgia

Neutral

Richard @ Aug 27th 2008 3:36PM

I didn't know it was possible to tell the battery life from a photo without hearing about the usage of the phone and what applications they've been running.

Neat trick!

Neutral

RVSpinX @ Aug 27th 2008 3:40PM

I think the 7:54pm time at the top of the screen means, its 7:54pm and most likely NOT light outside.

Neutral

iEye @ Aug 27th 2008 3:38PM

Thats one big a$$ phone!

Neutral

isoSasquatch @ Aug 27th 2008 3:42PM

or one small-ass hand.

Neutral

kccboy2004 @ Aug 27th 2008 3:50PM

sweet

Low Ranked

Balint @ Aug 27th 2008 4:57PM

They so try to fight with the iPhone but they cant. 1 the design is really ugly, 2 the display is a little bit lower then the body, which isnt good for fingers at the side of the display 3 no glass screen as on iPhone 3G. 4. it doesnt have the Mac OSX software which means its speed will be slower (just like Window Mobile) or if it wont be slower but it wont have as many programs written for it as the iPhone. They try to beat the iPhone but they just cant see what makes the iPhone so great. Of course the iPhone design is unique, but till they doesnt have a software like the iPhone has and such (the iphone Mac OSX is pretty fast when it comes to touch sensitivity). So in my opinion this will only be an other failer to beat the iPhone.

Highly Ranked

Matt @ Aug 27th 2008 5:02PM

You're pretty awesome if you can tell all of that from a picture.

Go away.

Neutral

Alareth @ Aug 27th 2008 6:17PM

Ok, here is an amazingly radical idea. Maybe, just maybe, it's not designed to compete with the iPhone and is meant to simply be a phone with a nice GPS in it?

I know it's a difficult concept in this day and age, but not everyone cares about the iPhone and phone buying decisions aren't always based on "How does this compare to the iPhone?"

Neutral

jmt @ Aug 28th 2008 10:56AM

The Iphone is cool but it has one big problem which makes it really suck; Itunes. By far the worst, most confusing, not user friendly way to manage media. I've had several Garmin devices which were always solid-- I would hope that adding media to the Nuviphone will as simple as drag and drop and not all the syncing crap that Itunes makes you do. Where did all my songs go?

Neutral

Brian @ Aug 27th 2008 5:42PM

¡Nuvifone en Español!

Highly Ranked

Jarhead111 @ Aug 27th 2008 5:48PM

The nuvifone will be much more worthwhile than you all think. I have had a few hours alone with the nuvifone, and personally own an iphone, and think the nuvifone will be a fine competitor. It may crash, but that's due to prototype software. The texting app works great and is easy to use, and the navigation is as good, if not better than any other nuvi. It will work great, they just need to finish up on some final tweaking. The feature that really sets the nuvifone apart, is the fact that from any screen in the entire device, if you find/recieve and address, you can immediately navigate to it, as well as send it to other people. It supports geotagging, and has a chat application. It includes a full web browser and such. It will do just fine.

P.S. - one thing that I find very nice, is that the screen will auto-rotate on any screen in the UI, no matter what. Where with the iphone, it only rotates when viewing pictures, listening to music, or using the web browser.

Neutral