Garmin nuvifone G60

10 FEB 2009

PREVIEW

The nuvifone has been on our radar for over a year now, even before Garmin announced its love-in with Asus. But that unlikely marriage has now produced two lovely children – the G60 and M20.

With the more traditional M20 sticking to Windows Mobile, it’s the Linux-running G60 that’s got our interest. It packs a strong feature set, including HSDPA, Wi-Fi and 4GB storage, and is fronted by a 3.5in touchscreen that will see it pitched face-to-face with the iPhone and Blackberry Storm.

Knows its onions (and A-roads)
But of course it’s that GPS functionality we’re interested in. If anyone's going to be able to do the sat-nav-phone thing right, surely it’ll be the company that earns its crust peddling talky map boxes to motorists, right? We have high hopes for the nuvifone, and by the looks of things we won't be disappointed.

Review continues after the break... 

The G60 comes loaded with either US or European mapping including a huge repository of points of interest (POIs). Garmin promises that it has all the functionality of its nuvi sat-nav range, and that includes the essential turn-by-turn spoken directions that make it a proper vehicular routefinder.

Sat-nav’s little helper
The nuvifone's location based service (LBS) technology also sounds very handy. It allows you to use your GPS location to find out what's going on in the vicinity – so if you're feeling a bit peckish you can find the local eateries, then the local hospital when you start choking on an olive.

The ‘Where am I?’ function can also be used during a phone call, and the G60 will make a note of where it was last removed from the windscreen mount, helping you to find your way back to your car in labyrinthine car parks.

In these days of 8MP camphones, the G60’s 3MP job may seem a bit underwhelming, but if this nuvifone does the three options on its homescreen well – phone, internet and sat-nav – we’ll forgive it minor indiscretions like that.