The Garmin-Asus phones have finally reached the Indian shores. The first two of the Garmin-Asus branded phones are Windows Mobile powered M20 and Linux equipped G60. M20 that will go for a heavy Rs. 31,900 price tag which runs Windows Mobile 6.5 OS and features a 2.8-inch touchscreen display, 3MP auto focus camera, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, Opera browser and of course, GPS with location-based services.

G60 is priced at Rs. 29,900 and boasts a larger 3.5-inch touchscreen display but trades the WinMo OS for a customized Linux system. As for the other features, they’re more or less the same as M20 with 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, 3MP auto focus camera, 4GB internal memory with microSD card support and Office docs support.

Both the phones come with pre-installed maps provided by Navteq.

The Garmin-Asus phone will finally start selling in US from Oct 4. Arriving on AT&T, the phone is touted to be a perfect combination of phone and personal navigation device. It comes preloaded with North America map and loads of Points of Interests (POI) bundled along with a dashboard and windshield mount, making it a perfect substitute for dedicated in-car navigation device.

As for the phone, it has a 3.55-inch touchscreen, 4GB internal memory, 3MP camera, HTML browser, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and more.

It will be sold for $299 after $100 mail-in-rebate and will also include a 30-day trial of Nuvifone Premium Connected Service that pushes traffic updates, white pages, weather, movie, local events and fuel price content. It will cost $5.99/month after the trial expires.

Specifications:

2G Connectivity: Quad-band GSM / GPRS / Edge 850/900/1800/1900
3G Connectivity: 850/1900/2100 HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
Other Connectivity: 802.11 b/g WLAN, Bluetooth, HFP, HSP, AVRCP, A2DP mini-USB 2.0
OS: Linux
Dimensions: 112 x 58.1 x 14.6 mm
Weight: 137g (battery included)
Display: 3.55? 65K colors, anti-glare resistive touchscreen
Display Resolution: 272 x 480 WQVGA
Camera/Photos: 3MP camera with auto-focus and geo-tagging
Flash Memory: 4GB on-board 128 MB RAM
Expandable Memory: Micro SD, HC Capable, expandable up to 16GB
Music Player: MP3 capable
Headphone Jack: 2.5 mm
Battery: 1100 mAh removable/rechargeable lithium cell
Email: POP3, IMAP 4, IMAP idle, SMTP
Internet: HTML browser based on Webkit platform
Calendar/PIM: Outlook contacts and calendar
Productivity: Document viewing: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, JPG

Press Release

Garmin-Asus have announced today that their nuvifone G60 will make its way to the retail stores on July 27 in Taiwan while Singapore and Malaysia will start selling from end of August. They have also confirmed the sale of nuvifone M20, which will take place sometime in August in Hong Kong, Thailand and aforementioned countries.

Rehashing the specs, the G60 features support for quad-band GSM, tri-band HSDPA, customized Linux OS, 3.55-inch touchscreen, 3MP camera with autofocus, geo-tagging, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, full HTML browser, e-mail and talk time of up to 4 hours.

M20 on the other hand is a WinMo offering which will initially be launched on 6.1 OS but will be upgradeable to 6.5. It supports tri-band GSM bands, dual-band HSPA, 3MP camera sensor with autofocus, geo-tagging, 2.8-inch touchscreen, pre-installed Opera browser, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, e-mail and up to 3.5 hours of talk time.

As regards to the European and US launch, Garmin-Asus claims it is on schedule for the second half of 2009.

Press Release

Garmin-Asus partnership has led to another creation, namely the M20. It is their first nüvifone that runs on Windows Mobile 6.1 Pro and touts to be the most advanced LBS (location-based services) WinMo phone. The phone is filled Garmin’s nüvi sat nav software loaded with maps and POIs, Ciao GPS based social network and includes a 2.8-inch touchscreen supporting VGA resolution, Wi-Fi, 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 4/8GB internal memory. The price and street date will be announced in the first half of this year.

Full M20 Specifications:

APAC/EU:3G 900/2100; 2G 900/1800/1900
North America: 3G 850/1900; 2G 850/1800/1900
Other Connectivity: 802.11 b/g WLAN; Bluetooth 2.0+EDR; mini USB 2.0
OS: Microsoft Windows Mobile Professional 6.1
Dimensions: 95.3 x 52.5 12.8 mm
Weight: 99g (including battery)
Display: 2.8″, VGA 640 x 480, 65K, TFT with touch lens
Display Resolution: 640 x 480
Camera/Photos: 3MP camera, JPG format with auto-focus and geotagging. View photos in JPG/PNG/GIF/BMP format
Flash Memory: 4 GB or 8GB
Audio: Built-in microphone & speaker; Ring tone supported formats: MP3, AAC, AAC+, WMA, WAV, and AMR-NB
Headphone Jack: mini-USB
Video Playback: MPEG4/H.264/H.263/WMV @ 30fps VGA
Video Recording: MPEG4/H.263 @ 15fps QVGA; Streaming Audio/Video
Messaging: SMS / MMS / Email / MSN / Push Email (POP3/SMTP/IMAP) / Microsoft Exchange Email
Internet: Opera browser, HTML, WAP 1.2.1/2.0
Sync: ActiveSync for Outlook contacts calendar, media and documents
Productivity: Document viewing: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF
CPU: Qualcomm 7200A 528MHz
Battery: 920 mAh Lithium (replaceable)
Talk Time: 3G: 3 hours / 2G: 2.8 hours
Others: Accelerometer

Garmin-Asus also revealed the full specifications of its G60 phone that was announced last week.

Full G60 Specifications:

2G Connectivity: Quad-band GSM / GPRS / Edge 850/900/1800/1900
3G Connectivity: 850/1900/2100 HSDPA 3.6 Mbps
Other Connectivity: 802.11 b/g WLAN, Bluetooth, HFP, HSP, AVRCP, A2DP mini-USB 2.0
OS: Linux
Dimensions: 112 x 58.1 x 14.6 mm
Weight: 137g (battery included)
Display: 3.55″ 65K colors, anti-glare resistive touchscreen
Display Resolution: 272 x 480 WQVGA
Camera/Photos: 3MP camera with auto-focus and geo-tagging
Flash Memory: 4GB on-board 128 MB RAM
Expandable Memory: Micro SD, HC Capable, expandable up to 16GB
Music Player: MP3 capable
Headphone Jack: 2.5 mm
Battery: 1100 mAh removable/rechargeable lithium cell
Email: POP3, IMAP 4, IMAP idle, SMTP
Internet: HTML browser based on Webkit platform
Calendar/PIM: Outlook contacts and calendar
Productivity: Document viewing: Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF, JPG

Garmin and Asus have announced a strategic alliance that will allow both the companies to leverage each other’s expertise to make co-branded phones. First in the nüvifone line of Garmin-Asus phones is G60 which will be exhibited at the MWC trade show. Garmin-Asus is trying to keep the full details for the expo but the website reveals some features of the phone.

- Quadband GSM
- Tri-band HSDPA
- Wi-Fi
- GPS with turn-by-turn directions
- Camera
- Geo-tagged SMS
- Ciao location based social networking platform

While more phones are promised by the new best friends, G60 will hit the retail shelves only in the first half of this year.

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