The battle is on. Garmin is back with a vengeance. Introducing nuvifone.
iPhone is clearly a leader in the cool smart phone segment but it lacks some key features. GPS, 3G support and VoIP calling over Wi-Fi to name a few. Some of these concerns might be addressed by the new GPS-Phone that Garmin has just announced. Knowing Garmin (I own a Nuvi 660) I know that they will have a very usable UI and it will be pretty responsive, unlike Windows Mobile devices.
The only thing that can stop me from buying this, is availability of good applications on its proprietary OS. iPhone doesn't have an open OS like Windows as well but there are good enough applications and I am assuming it works well with Windows. Also, its price has to be very competitive if it wants to break Apple's market share in this segment.
Key Features:
- 3.5inch touch screen (Although, it might not have multi-touch surface which allows you to zoom-out by pinching)
- Quad band phone
- Millions of points of interest (Its a Garmin with build-in GPS!)
- Google search sorted by distance from where you are
- Turn by turn voice-prompted direction (Its a Garmin with built-in GPS)
- "Where am I?" feature lets users touch the screen at any time to display the exact latitude and longitude coordinates, the nearest address and intersection, and the closest hospitals, police stations and gas stations
- Helps drivers remember where they parked by marking the position in which it was last removed from the vehicle mount
- Garmin Online - an online service offering constantly updated information such as real-time traffic, fuel prices, stock prices, sports scores, news reports, local events and weather forecasts
- Built-in camera (Mega pixels not known). It automatically tag the pictures with exact latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken. The user may then save the image so they can navigate back to the location, or email the image to a recipient who can navigate directly to the location.
- Provides direct access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs available through Google's Panaramio picture sharing site
- Integrated media player to handle MP3, MPEG4 and AAC files
- 3.5G mobile phone capability with an internet browser (HSDPA support)
Yahoo press release.
