Hands on with the Garmin-Asus nuvifone M20
Garmin and Asus took advantage of Mobile World Congress back in February to announce the second nuvifone-branded handset that will reach market — the nuvifone M20. Despite the fact that the G60 has yet to hit store shelves, Garmin and Asus are seemingly anxious to display the fruits of their joint handset efforts and hey, were not going to complain. The M20 is tiiiiiiiny. Not so tiny that the duo couldn’t stuff a nice bright 2.8-inch VGA (640×480) touchscreen in there, but definitely small compared to other similarly-styled phones. As you would imagine, it’s all about navigation. Garmin uses an exclusive customized version of its GPS navigation software on its handsets — think of it as Garmin Mobile XT but tweaked and fully integrated into the OS. The OS on this little guy by the way, is Windows Mobile 6.1. We found that a bit odd considering Garmin whipped up its own Linux-based OS for the G60 but such is life. Garmin and Asus are actually planning to use a variety of different OSes for their devices, including Android. But we digress.
The way navigation is implemented in the M20 is awesome. Example: the M20 has a presence app that will display a list of all of your buddies. Select a buddy and his or her position will be plotted on a map. Another poke or two and you’re off, navigating to his or her location with Garmin’s great turn by turn nav app. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of course, as Garmin has really gone through and tied its navigation capabilities into the OS wherever appropriate and convenient. If you’re constantly on the go, the M20 is certainly a handset you should be on the lookout for when it drops sometime before Q2 is out. Hit the jump for more images of this little nav powerhouse all dressed up in yellow.
Wanted this. Have my iPhone and Storm. Garmin, you took waaaaaaaaay too long to get this to market. Hold it, we still can’t buy one. Meh.
Ugh…drop the WinMo and we’d be golden. The Linux based OS looked so much better.
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).
So, I’m assuming ATT?
I see a “movie times” app. Any chance this will give directions to the theater after you purchase tickets?
The Pre and it’s Fandango app that merges the movie time into your calendar after ticket purchase got me thinking directions to the theater would be nice too.
Windows Mobile equals a big epic fail for Garmin and Asus trying to tread on HTC’s market.
Different OS options would be nice, especially if they stick to that.
Hmmmmmm gimme the Storm then I will be fine… Well I really like the Garmin phone as well but I will be probably using it for directions but my BlackBerry can do all that and more….. But the Garmin phone looks good though!!!!
Sent via BlackBerry.
@trv who doesn’t know where their local theatre is? And if you’re buying movie tickets for a certain theatre, I would hope you look it up first. We have 6 movie theaters around here and if I bought tickets for one without knowing where it is, I could be driving 20 miles to the theatre on the other side of town instead of the one that is 5 minutes away.
I was interested in this phone until now. Windows mobile just ruined another perfectly good idea.
Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone) at: Columbus United States
I can’t say I like it. Wait I just said it lol.
All the little winmo haters just crack me up.
The M20 looks like a sweet WM phone. I hope the camera is at least 3.2 MP.
Why do people bash WinMo so much? What’s so awful about it?
I’m asking because I don’t know WinMo but I’m having hard time to believe that it is as dreadful as many people claim.
Trust me, If it were as bad as people here claim, you wouldn’t see that many manufacturers clamoring to produce WinMo phones now would ya?
Food for thought…
little late into the market, Garmin didn’t do a good job.
@Palfrei:
Windows Mobile is the OS that real power users use. It will let you do things with your phone that you didn’t think were possible. Since the feeble minds don’t want to attempt to understand how a REAL mobile OS works, it’s easier for them to just say “it sucks” and then go back to their iPhone.
@ Ryan
So true!
not really good to buy..
it’s better if u buy storm and have a garmin mobile xt installed..its better that way
the os is bad for the graphic
only the navigation is really good at