So, we had a few precious moments to play around with Garmin-Asus' latest
Nuvifones here in lovely Barcelona today -- the
M10 and
A50, running on Windows Mobile 6.5.3 and Android 1.6, respectively -- and even better, we did so in the back of a black Mercedes expressly purposed for testing out the integrated turn-by-turn capabilities. Follow the break for our quick impressions!
The A50 feels and looks great from the front, but less so from the rear -- it's just no-frills black plastic, but on the upside, it's probably not going to slide out of your hand too easily. The car dock connector is on the side of the phone, which makes it possible to use a
Nuvi-style dock with a mega-simple latching mechanism, but one connector that's sadly missing is the 3.5mm headphone jack -- it's a tragic oversight for any multimedia-capable device these days, particularly a smartphone. Then again, media isn't where this particular Android set seeks to stand out; it's all in the software, rather, and Garmin's done a ton of customization to turn the
Donut base into a beast all its own (and don't worry, they say the phone can be and will be upgraded, they're just not putting a timeline out there yet). Unlike
Sense and
Blur, the Nuvifone-style home screen is totally unrecognizable by Android standards -- it's got giant Call, Where To, and View Map buttons on the left accompanied by a customizable strip of icons on the left (which work in lieu of the usual ability to drop icons anywhere you like on the home screen). The turn-by-turn navigation looks as good as anything you'll find on the market, loading reasonably fast (though there's no such thing as "too fast" when it comes to this kind of stuff). Plus, the fact that the basemaps are on ROM is a huge win and a differentiator for Garmin -- we think they'll need to really emphasize that point to see some market penetration.
The M10, meanwhile, is reasonably sexy, but we prefer the A50's simple good looks by the thinnest of margins. It's obviously being billed as a slightly higher-end device than the A50 on account of the 5 megapixel cam (up from the A50's 3) and the inclusion of a 3.5mm jack, but what really struck us was Windows Mobile 6.5.3 -- obviously WinMo's still got a ton of issues in its present-day form, but 6.5.3 takes the paradigm just about as close as it can be to finger-friendliness as possible. If you're still a stylus kind of person, though, don't worry -- you've got one discreetly tucked around back.
Perhaps what impressed us the most about these two devices is how similar their turn-by-turn experiences are -- Garmin's basically made it so that you can take the platform of your choice and sprinkle in navigation capability equivalent to a high-end Nuvi. Broad carrier adoption might still be the biggest single barrier to making Garmin-Asus a competitive joint venture, but with these two phones -- the A50 in particular -- they're taking baby steps in the right direction.
posted February 14th 2010 11:25AM
is it just me or does that look like an n95 8gb?
@brrip
It's just you
@Bublik25 and you just stupid.
@brrip Or an LG Chocolate.
@Bublik25 lol, added to the m10, it show the phone will have a 5 megapixel camera, wireless, GPS and a microSDHC card slot also. The phone it’s self costs $450 (via Taiwan) and included in the price you also get an extra battery or the option of a car holder to prop the phone up when using navigation: Purported view: http://bit.ly/garmin-asus-nuvifone-10-view
I would peersonally wait till tomorrow.
@BGates ahahahaha what's happening tomorrow?
@BGates
now everyone sees what's happening :))
BG, you are a partisan :)
The A50 only interests me.
Nice front, I like the back even though engadget says yuck
And its got Android, which I would prefer over Windows Mobile
I'm liking that M10!! :-)
@Suzaroo The M10 have been on sale for quite a while already in Taiwan http://shopping.pchome.com.tw/?mod=item&func=exhibit&IT_NO=DGAL1F-A46026334&SR_NO=DGAL1F&ROWNO=1
It's going for about $430 without contract
WHERE'D YOU GET THE COP CAR? WE STOLE IT. NICEEEE!
What were they thinking when they left out the 3.5mm jack?
@bricktop, I bet it was something like,......"hey,.... Let's leave out the 3.5mm Jack....."?
@Irondog I think it was more like "How can we limit the sales of this phone so people go buy separate phones, PMP's, MID's, and PND's?" I don't think making a phone that no one buys will really help them sell more PND's but they don't really seem to know what they're doing.
@jkbrennan77
yeah, my point exactly - they just don't seem to know what they're doing, or what market they're in..
@bricktop
I dunno, maybe what HTC was thinking when they did the same thing on the tons of Android phones they sold? Last I checked those seem to be doing rather well...
@nocarrier83
Sure. All I know is that I wouldn't buy one..
Or any smartphone/PMP without a 3.5mm jack, that forces you to use special headphones.. (or a silly adapter?)- but that's because I always use them for listening to music.
The stylus means resistive screen right?
Moreover for this price nowadays you can get some truly amazing devices (like my beloved HD2 for exemple) on which you can put Copilot (my choice) or TomTom or whatever you prefer.
Or like my trusty Hero (yes, I need 2 phones) for which , besides the usual satnav programs are available even some great FREE navigation apps and soon also google maps' turn by turn update.
I look forward to upgrade my Hero with a Bravo or a Supersonic but I would still prefer my Hero to these nuviphones.
What processor, how much RAM , how much memory do they offer?
Why would anyone choose these things instead of a N1, a Milestone/Droid, or one of the upcoming Android cum Snapdragon superphones?
Their only chance , in my humble opinion, is to offer a very aggressive price, but since this does not seem to be Asus/Garmin's opinion, I am ready to bet that they are speedily headed towards failland.
Any takers?
@Plexus
The only way I can justify it (in my mind at least) is you get the peace of mind that comes from getting a Garmin GPS device. Garmin has been doing GPS devices for years, and so have had the time to perfect the combination of GPS receiver and navigation software and meld them together into one cohesive unit.
I don't need GPS functionality that often, so that argument is moot, but its the only logical one I can think of.
@Plexus
BigJayDogg3 said it exactly right: it's a Garmin, and people trust Garmin for nav. It's true that someone could just get a Droid, a Nexus One, or another high-end, super-fast phone, but they won't have the same appeal as these will. Plenty people will see the nuvifones and instantly get it. There are no pretensions of a smartphone platform to immediately compete with or take time to understand when you see these, and that's more than enough to get people to walk out of the store with one, and then if they find they like Android or WinMo, then that's good too. I can't tell you how many people I know that don't mess with smartphones because they feel they can't handle it; these are the kinds of phones that people will just 'get'. Shoot, if I had money to blow, I'd pick up an M10. It's very sleek, and I could use good nav. I've heard as many bad things about Copilot as I've heard good things...
It'd be cool if somebody extracted the GPS app from a ROM dump and could put it on other devices.
Man it stinks that the winmo phone has a 3.5mm jack and 5mp camera to the Android phone's no 3.5mm jack and 3mp!
That is unforgiveable. Better stick to laptops, Asus if you can't get something simple like that right...
Check this you tube vidoe of the phone. Garmin is getting better with each new phone. Won't be long before they come up with something exceptional.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpipLPUa_pA