There’s never a dull moment in the cellphone arena, ever. And now that Garmin has officially announced their Nuvifone there’s a guarantee that there will be all kinds of talk and excitement over the next coming months. Yes, it’s official. Garmin has announced that they are making their first solo appearance into the cellphone industry by launching the nuviphone. It’s set to launch in the 3rd quarter this year, although no specific date has been mentioned.
And since it’s Garmin, a leader in global positioning systems, the phone will be big on GPS and helping you navigate. One of the big complaints about the iPhone is that it doesn’t have built-in GPS and now Garmin is coming in to offer a touch-screen device with GPS. Here are a few questions that come to mind regarding the phone:
- How are they going to perfect the on-screen keyboard?
- How will they make use of the touch-screen (e.g., what will scrolling be like?)
- Which carriers will be selling the phone?
- How long will the battery life be? (this is one shining point of the iPhone, and one reason they didn’t include a GPS, it affected battery life too much)
Garmin has a whole gallery of images that gives us an idea of what everything will be like from the web browser and navigation to the integration of Google local. Below are a few of those images:
According to Garmin’s COO, they’re calling it the “breakthrough product that cellphone and GPS users around the world have been longing for.” We’ll be keeping our eye out for more info on this one. If done right, it could turn into an decent iPhone competitor.
Source: Engadget
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Tags: Gadgets, Hardware, iPhone
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This actually looks slick, I wouldn’t mind having one.
My biggest concern with this being a Garmin product would be with the battery life.
The best bicycle computer I have ever owned was the Garmin Edge 305 (https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=160&pID=331), however, it sucked when it came to battery life. It was advertised as having a 12 hour battery life, which would be enough.
The problem is that I only ever got just a little over 8 hours. When I talked with tech support, they would not do anything because they said they only guarantee 8 hours. For me that is not enough as I sometimes put in 10 hours on a ride.
I ended up selling it on eBay and got what I paid for it. They are coming out with the Edge 705 (https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=160&pID=10885) which has “full” GPS support with turn by turn directions. I will have to seriously look into it as that would be great for riding in new areas.
I don’t think the battery life will be above 8 hours of usage considering most cellphones hardly get 2 or 3 hours.