There she is. 20 months and 1 day after
its original introduction to the world, the Garmin-Asus
nüvifone G60 is at long last in our (admittedly sweaty) palms. The highfalutin' smartphone isn't slated to hit AT&T shelves until this Sunday, but we were able to wrangle a retail unit early in order to bring you a sneak peek at what's to come. Frankly, we've been looking forward to this day for a long (long!) time. We've got a soft spot in our hearts for the Garmin navigation UI, and we have to say, that very same look and feel has been beautifully migrated to the mobile space. Upon unwrapping the phone, we were struck by just how classy the whole thing looks. It's plenty thin for being a GPS-turned-phone, light enough to not weigh you down and sturdy enough to
somewhat justify the
$299 (on contract) price. We did some brief browsing around, and everything felt satisfactorily snappy. The resistive touchscreen had some expected give, but by and large screen presses did exactly what we wanted 'em to in our limited testing. We're aiming to give this bad boy a serious critiquing over the next few days, but for now, feel free to peruse the absurdly detailed gallery below.
posted October 1st 2009 12:08PM
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Okay, I can't seem to respond to my post, but I was suggesting a Nuvi 765t. Retails at $450. I've seen it for a little under $300 new, and $200 for refurb. Here's a link to the site:
https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134&pID=14926
What would be considered a "high end" Garmin device is going to be over three hundred dollars.
here's the problem...
the original introduction had this phone at 500 bucks (back in 2007) back then, gps was still a novelty of sorts and garmin was making high end units that cost near 1000 dollars. at that time, before the iphone and pre and all of those phones, it seemed like a reasonable price, maps will always update, internet, phone standard stuff.
now its for 300 dollars. BUT the iphone and pre are 200 dollars. on top of that, people have standalone gps units or their automobile does. this is too late, it was great in 07 and if in 08 it was released it'd have been a contender, but it needs to be 150 on contract to really sell, 300 is just too much if it is put in perspective.
Ah, I didn't realize the iphone is only 200 with contract. The other thing is that the traffic updates and such is an additional charge per month, that just seems silly considering you're already paying for a data plan. The only thing is that the Nuvi is really a superior GPS product compared to Tom Tom at least from my use of them both. And I can't see the iphone's Tom Tom software and stuff being even as good as a standalone Tom Tom unit.
So you still have to pay a monthly subscription for traffic updates right?
Yes, the Garmin connected services such as traffic and weather data are separate from the AT&T data plan.
At least the browser screenshots looks halfway decent (much better than Pocket IE). Does this device use webkit based browser?
Hmmm. $299, a resistive touchscreen, and an awkward, vertical-only keyboard (or so it appears). Looks good to me...
Keyboard goes standard QWERTY when flipped horizontally.
Almost every screen on the entire phone is available in both orientations, including, as already said, the keyboard.
This is *not* a smartphone. A smartphone lets you install apps; this does not.
(Bleep, even a reasonable featurephone lets you install J2ME apps.)
I have Garmin's Mobile XT software on my AT&T Tilt with built in GPS. The software cost me less than $80 at Amazon. Is this version of Garmin's software different enough from that to justify a whole new device? Like many of you, I guess I am missing their target market here.
(I also have TomTom on my phone and much prefer it to Garmin)
The ability to allow you to share your location and track other people is very cool. However, it looks like a crappy phone.
The iPhone's weakest element is the phone. It is a great internet communication/media device but a crappy phone.
The nuvifone looks like a great GPS device but crappy everything else. They should refresh the stale GUI and map display. It looks like a children's version of an iPhone with big cartoony and flat 2-D pictures/shapes.
Fine, but how often do you really need the GPS? I can see it being a niche market to salesmen, truckers and delivery drivers. I think it's been like a month since I used my GPS last. I certainly don't need it to be a prominent feature on my phone (with the expense of having to carry around something with a larger screen.) I'd rather have a standalone GPS that stays in the car and a smaller portable phone.
They should have put Android on this phone.
They should have made the standard "Garmin UI" in a separate application.
The user being able to enable it from the main menu, or from the push of a button.
Much like the standard "camera" button on a cellphone today.
I have to admit I love the Garmin Nuvi interface over all other Navs, but the cost is ridiculous. Whether you are an iPhone luvr or hater you, have to admit the decision is a no brainer considering the flexibility of the "Jesus Phone"
People who buy stand-alone navigation units AT ALL confuse me. Google Maps is free (including traffic updates), can be loaded on practically any phone, and provides turn-by-turn directions. Sure it doesn't call out turn instructions to you (yet) but do you really have so much trouble handling the minor inconvenience of reading a screen for the next step when you get to a stop light, at least so much that you'd pay hundreds of dollars for any stand-alone GPS device that looks ridiculous in your car? (If you don't get that it looks ridiculous, go ahead and skip the rest of my post because aesthetics are lost on you.) If you insist on turn-by-turn voice instructions, there are many options out there to load onto whatever phone you have as well (TeleNav for most non-iPhone poeple). I like gadgets, but this has always seemed like a stupid thing to spend money on to me.
Some things I've noticed about this phone.
First, it DOES have a full querty keyboard when you rotate... It does not stay in that strange abc format (@Sara). I've found the texting to be very responsive and I love the anti glare display. The phone's UI is very fast and it just feels good. It looks sleek and sexy.
Second, email setup was very easy. I liked the easy to use mapping software. and the camera is pretty good. It has an MP3 player wich is a must for me.
Third, The phone lacks video capture, MMS ,and video play back (WTF?). I mean, what am I going to do if I can't watch my movies on it? These features are a must for me. I absolutely RAILED against the Iphone for lacking some of these features when it first came out. If I am to be fair, i have to hold this phone to the same criteria. And I do.
EPIC FAIL!!
Nice unboxing and review Darren!
I think the Nuvifone has a future and a pice of the market, its simple and does what its supposed to do - and less is more :-)
Anyways I want one....along with my iPhone 3GS.