The
nüvifone G60 took nearly two years to go from
introduction to
on sale at AT&T, and just weeks after its introduction, it has been nearly completely forgotten. Smartphones like Motorola's Droid and HTC's Droid Eris have already snagged the spotlight, and of course, that $300 (on contract) price tag that it debuted with didn't help attract any eyes, either. That said, we're sure at least a few (couple?) of you bit the bullet post-
price drop, and now we're overly anxious to hear how you feel about it. After two years, does this thing really live up to the expectations? Are you satisfied with the navigation capabilities? Is the lackluster battery life worrying you yet? Should Garmin-Asus even bother with a second-gen device? Sound off in comments below!
posted Nov 14th 2009 3:35AM
first
@igor : FIRST to call you.. JACKASS!
Go 1 year back in time and then release it..
you beat me by thaaat much :)
Amen!
Get a life, you idiot.
@Igor : Igor ANGRY!! ooohh... I'm scared! LOL :D
I think the picture with the red bar indicator for the battery says it all.
travel back in time and release it in 2007
well i would bring it to australia for a start so i could look at it...
screw this give me a zune HD in Asutralia
screw this give me a zune HD in Australia
I would also like a proper commenting system
Epic failure as a phone with an epic failure provider. (Nice signal strength, you meant to do that ... right?)
Actually it was mentioned before that the Garmin's overall indicated signal strength was lower than other phones....
I got this phone the other day from amazon. i upgraded from an iphone because it it was pretty boring. Anyways, overall the nuvifone its great. first on the screen, colors are rich, and contrast is solid. The brightness isn't quite as eye-searing as the iPhone at full tilt, and doesn't even approach the supernova 8830 we've got here, but frankly, how bright do you need it? Everything looked sharp and clear, though I've gotten a little spoiled by the iphone's incredible pixel density, and now other phones seem to pale in comparison.
Navigating through menus and the home screen is still very much like an iphone experience though. The phone has two levels of "application" screens, the initial landing screen, which gives you eight app icons of your choosing, and a deeper level which displays all of your folders and programs. You can use the touchscreen to hover (or select) each of the icons, giving it that blue glow, but we found it annoying that you couldn't drag your finger across the selections and have the glow follow you (as it does when typing). It gets stuck on the first thing you touch, and you have to re-press to move to another icon -- it seems like it would be more convenient to have the selection follow your movements, but the phone doesn't seem to know the difference between a quick flick up or down and a selection.
Most components of the UI did require scrolling but don't seem drastically changed from iphone, and you can now jump through lists by up-down gestures. Again, i found that the lack of inertia made this seem stiffer than expected, though it worked well enough when moving around the phone. theres few visual tweaks to the OS , like crossfades and sideways swipes of pages which admittedly give it a bit more polish, although they seem largely superfluous (don't worry, we feel the same way about the iPhone's zooms and scrolls). Overall, transitions between screens and inside of apps do seem a bit more sluggish than the iphone. I whistled for a cab and when it came near The license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror If anything I can say this cab is rare But I thought 'Now forget it' - 'Yo homes to Bel Air' I pulled up to the house about 7 or 8 And I yelled to the cabbie 'Yo homes smell ya later' I looked at my kingdom I was finally there Tosit on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air.
That wasn't even mildly funny. In fact, it was annoying. I was waiting for the punchline, and when you finally delivered it, the only thing that actually made me laugh is that you missed the space between "to" and "sit"
I now feel stupider for reading that comment.
So you upgraded from the iPhone because it was boring but you found the Nuvifone inferior in every way?
Great story, bro.
good, im glad it annoyed you because that was my goal.
Only a moron would trade an iPhone for a Nuvi.
Travel back in time and cancel the project.
if its going to be mounted, at least put a solar charger to offset the mediocre battery life.
That would be great.
Give it to a carrier that can sell it correctly. All AT&T cares about is the iphone; it overshadows all their other phones to the point where all AT&T may as well sell is the iphone. Hell, I've never even seen an ad for the nuvi phone. Not to mention, the phone's functionality is already duplicated on the iphone to boot.
They should have give it to Verizon, or Sprint.
That said, they also took FAR too long to release the damn thing. I heard about the nuvi phone almost two years before it finally hit shelves. Did Garmin think that technology would come to a halt while they took their sweet time? What would have been an amazing phone is now fairly standard.
Hell, when I first saw it in 2007, I thought to myself "I WANT that phone. Right now."
I've seen a commercial for it. It has some teenage girl driving with her friends and it seems the biggest selling point is that you can use the navigation and talk at the same time. Even though you can use the bluetooth and already talk through your Garmin when your cell phone is connected. It's been poorly marketed for sure.
If they want to save the project they have to release it with modern looking Android asap. Otherwise they can close the project.
What does this do that my iPhone won't do better...? I don't get who the heck would pay 300 for something that a 99 dollar iPhone 3G can do.
They could improve this one by canceling it right now before they tarnish their good reputation. With Google looking to shake up the entire GPS world with their free turn-by-turn navigation, Garmin ought to be very careful because a failure with this phone, compounded with Google's free nav, could represent the first stumble down a slippery slope of failure and irrelevance.
I hope google keeps turn by turn an android only app
They are making a version with Android, but by the time it comes out I bet most smartphones will have turn by turn navigation built in.
I think some of the problems with this phone can be found just by looking at that picture:
1. Two bars of signal; AT&T is a bad network
2. Battery icon in the red; Bad batter life
3. + and - zoom buttons; No multitouch zooming
4. The GARMIN logo; Garmin makes GPS devices and Asus makes laptops and such. Neither specializes in phones.
Those four problems and others add up to some pretty big problems for a device that is coming out at the worst possible time.
ASUS makes phones. quite a few...
Asustek will soon make iPhones. They already produce alot of outsourced phone, various WinMo devices for instance.
Asus made some kick ass PocketPCs back in the day.
ASUS makes some kickass stuff NOW
Release it two years ago.
Crap I thought I had a Garmin Phone already??? Cracked GarminXT software on a e71 = nuvifone right? At the very least I have 2010 maps and this G60 surely has maps from 2007.
@Ninja Sherman
Can you point me towards the Garmin XT hack for the E71?
I have been looking for an excuse to upgrade my E71, but nothing except the droid (Shoals) and the jesus phone come close. I would buy the E72 but it looks like the optical D Pad is something to avoid, and the N900's resistive screen has me thinking I will be looking for a physical keyboard the second the reality of no firmware updates sinks in (I have owned my E71-2 for almost 2 years and my serial number has only received 1 firmware update that has been reported to cut battery life by 1/2...No thank you Nokia)
If I want a shinny new handset it looks like I'll be forced to back up all my applications, do a hard reset and pick up a new housing off of ebay!
Turn it into an HTC HD2, it's a far better GPS navigator and a far better phone overall.
i was just woke up from a nightmare which i was in a street protesting walk in tehran against government and i wanted a phone to capture a movie and the first phone that i found was novifune(donno were was mine).suddenly battry runs out after 5 minute movie capturing so i guess they must work on battry,movie quality was not very high so add this one to list too.ooooh my god what a beauty was phone owner....
whattttt?
CHEAPER !!!
How much cheaper than free can you get?
http://9to5mac.com/node/11142
I have played with it for about 10 minutes in the store a couple weeks ago.
The screen resolution is terrible. Its not a particularly good looking phone, black plastic brick.
Let's face it though, this phone is aiming at a small market. If you completely rely for GPS for everything you do, its not THAT terrible. UI isn't as pretty as other phones, but it functioned.
umm... android 2.0
Use a 1 GHZ SnapDragon instead, add HDMI out, make the display 4.3 inches big, add dedicated video hardware acceleration, use a 1,500mha battery, at least 5 mpx cam, 8 GB of internal memory would be okay to keep costs down, attach a bluetooth magnetized querty keyboard that can be removed if u want, have a kick stand pop out the back, sell a smart "smart" car kit a la HTC HD2 separately, and add louder stereo speakers. Also, Make the OS Maemo or Android.
OLED display would be asking for too much right? Seems like only Samsung is getting that right nowadays.
First of all, it should be an Android device imho. And instead of using crappy GPS functionality of the CPU/SOC, use Sirfstar IV instead.
It should have a bigger 4"+ OLED screen like the HTC HD2, either a Cortex A8 or Scorpion (Snapdragon) based CPU, front-facing camera, etc.
Well, I think a single sentence like this should be enough: Make it a competitive top-of-the-liner.
Android. (Which there will be... however) I am looking forwrd to a standalong garmin app for the android.
The biggest improvement would be the price. Now that it's $99 on Amazon that makes it much more reasonable. However, AT&T only lowered it to $199 AFTER the $100 rebate. Battery life isn't great but I use it in the car so it charges while connected to the cradle. I don't like large phones so I don't know about the bigger screens. The web browsing could be improved but I browse on my laptop 99% of the time so it doesn't matter to me but I could see why iphone users wouldn't want it. The G60 feels and looks really great. If Garmin would've introduced this earlier in the year at a lower price point they would've done a lot better. Too much hype with other phones now.
The nuvifone contrary to how most people view it, is not a failure. I think selling it unlocked and adding t-mobile 3G would be a huge plus. I think of it as a GPS with phone capabilities so all the phone frequencies should be supported. They should add a flash to the camera and add MMS capability with geotagging of course.
If they have a much longer-lasting battery and a more rugged exterior, that would really help. Maybe adding trails or waterway maps or making them very easy to add on would be a plus. I would prefer a 3.5mm headphone jack so it can also be used as a music player. Adding a video player would be nice as well as a few games for people who use games.
Adding a hot-swappable sim card slot like the memory cards are would really allow it to be a gps for anyone and a phone for anyone. Adding text to voice for reading of emails would really make it nice while while driving. It is advertised as the "navigation phone" and it really is. Everyone talks about their iphone this and their andriod that, but those phones are so locked down that you can't just let your kids borrow it when they go out for the night.
Having carrier subsidies makes it cheaper at the start but it loses so much. AT&T removed a lot of useful features, RSS feeds, Tethering, Business card scanner, car usb adapter..and sim-locked it so in order to use the nuvifone without a sim you have to unlock it.
One more thing garmin could do is make those "paid connected services" free. It would reduce their revenue but it would also increase it's usefulness. I think most "apps" on phones are "pay once" and then use forever and theirs should either be built into the product or available for add-on. No one likes additional monthly fees on a very expensive device.
I know many people have said they don't need the nuvifone but they already have a gps device. I say that this is should be the best nuvi device out there and then they can take the sim out their phone and pop it into the nuviphone while driving...or just use the nuviphone all the time as a feature phone. That is a whole different shift to it..but I have many phones and do sim-swap all the time to use whatever phone i feel like using at the time.
Android
Android please
Install Android and have the Garmin Nav app as part of the OS. Offer the nav app for others to puchase in the marketplace.
This is impossible...Garmin already announced they will not release Nav app to other phone anymore...ONLY Garmin-ASUS
Yes..if free upgrade to Android 2.0. attractive...
Garmin is creating a new andriod based nuvifone for next year 2010. Let's hope it won't be 2 years late like the first nuvifone. With an Android 2.0 base and the Garmin full GPS functionality, it should be worlds above the G60. It will have all that tasty GPS with the other goodies that people with smartphones seem to love...apps and a media player and exchange synching...it should be a really great navigation phone.
The biggest failure of the current Nuvifone is its smart phone features are dated. Mainly because development took about 2 yrs longer than anticipated.
By far its hands down the best navigation phone, period. The maps are stored in the phone so it works when you turn it on rather than having to connect to a cell tower to get the maps before you can begin navigating. I don't think there are any complaints in this area. Its basically a Nuvi device with a phone incorporated into it.
The current phone runs on a linux OS which Garmin customized to meet their needs. This OS gets scrapped on the next generation Nuvifone for the Android OS which everyone has been talking about recently.
The Android OS will give Garmin instant access to the Google app store similar to the iPhone app store. It will have more development efforts supporting the Google OS in terms of 3rd party software features like flash, acrobat readers, web browers support.
Google can worry about the OS and let Garmin focus on what it does best, navigation services.
..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FJHYqE0RDg
What does all this means? I think it means the next Nuvifone it have improved on all the smart phone features that it failed to deliver on the first attempt. In addition to providing what it already does best which is navigation.
My conclusion is that the next Nuvifone will be more on par with other phone on the market with superior NAV function this go around than the last. Making for a much better product.
thanks for the link. it made it easy to see all that is possible with garmin and andriod
I'd be more optmistic if they had a track record of making good phones. Also, everyone else will have updated their phones and the next iPhone will probably be out by then which is likely to also include their own nav app.
What they should do is grow some balls and fire the people that cost them the success of the G60 by releasing it so late (or announcing it so early), because face it -- a lot of us can agree that we would've bought the phone had it been released two years ago. Then they should replace those people with those that can really set things straight for the release of their next (Android) phone since they're REALLY going to have to pull something together that can compete with a free navigation app (on Android) from Google.
It's not just failures of the G60, and new features and pricing that Garmin should be focusing on their next phone. They should also focus on their business practices, as well. They should tread lightly because one wrong move and that companies' PND products are done for. And who knows, the G60 could've already been it.
Easy...Garmin apps only available for the Nuvifone.
When Garmin makes the next Nuvifone on the Android OS and it connects to Google’s Android app store would it be possible for Garmin to release apps that only work on the Nuvifone and not all Android OS phones?
If I were Garmin and wanted people to buy the Nuvifone I would want to sell as many of Garmin products as possible without effecting the quality by releasing them on phone hardware that can't support it. Example: TomTom releasing their app on the iPhone. That just made the company look bad.
I think it would be interesting that if I owned a Nuvifone(Android OS) that I could go to the app store and buy Garmins golf app Approach G5. Or download Garmns trail apps, Oregon or Dakota line products.
Garmin could have a fitness app download with a physical clip you could wear during workouts that could sync with the phone when you're done.
The Nuvifone could be Garmins convergence product.
How many people own multiple Garmin products and would like to see them wrapped up into one product?
These are the products that set Garmin apart from others. I definitely would not want to see them available to all phones. Just Nuvifones!!
Give people an incentive to want to buy the next Nuvifone.
ATT wireless has been perfect for me, no dropped calls. Verizon sucks to me and i have evidence why i feel this way. text massaging is limiting to a low number or characters, the people i text on verizon either get it cut off or have their phone divide the text into 2 even 3 texts so more money for verizon! also i can go on the web and email while talking on the iphone with att. verizon does not allow this and just the other day i was on the phone with tech support for my web store and was able to go on the web while talking. i never understood why people love verizon wireless but i have had much better experience with att. ill probably be down voted for having an opinion on the subject and believe me im really scarred of it. down voting is such a slap in the face to us people with our own opinions, i had to get up the nerve to post in here because i was so afraid of the dreaded down vote. hope you can spot sarcasm btw
I would probably make it invisible and then ninja proof. Also i would make it a car.
The only thing that could save the phone in its current phone is being released like two years ago.
I don't see anyway to save it now, even making it with a capacitive screen, more up to date features, etc would just make it a smart phone that only a niche group of fans would care about it.
Would have had invented it in 2004 and had it as a highly visible product placement in the movie Euro Trip as a do-it-all gadget that scored you the phone numbers and got you to the finest selection of European booty via the fastest route possible.
Tagline: Just a tap away. Instant 17-25 male demographic connection.
I would make it a Touch Pro 2, yeah, that would help.
Give it a more responsive OS, with a better screen, flash support at at least 16gb of space.
Put Google Maps Navigation on it and call it a day. What an epic fail.
Take the ASUS name off it and have them put more energy into stuff we care about them doing, like netbooks. As for Garmin, thanks for showing me the way up until this point (even though you never supported my anyway...cough...free updates), my new friend Droid can take it from here.....have fun at the retirement home playing 45s.
I'd reduce the width of the bezel frame surrounding the display. I prefer more display area than bezel, and would sacrifice some thickness if it meant less wide bezel.
WinMo 6.5 please!
make it come out a year after they announced the idea.. that would of been great lol. They should've dropped it after all the iphones et al already had gps. Sorry to anyone who has one of these
By going back in time and killing the person who decided that bringing this product to market with the current competition was a good idea.