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And the Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone we had all left for dead as far as the United States is concerned is actually going to come to life tomorrow. The announcement was made earlier this week and by ‘announcement’ I mean ‘official announcement’. The handset that has a tale as long as the Lord Of The Rings trilogy is going to head for none other than AT&T. the G60 will set you back $299.99 on a two-year contract after a $100 mail-in rebate. Too pricey you say? You may just as well buy the iPhone 3GS and pair it with a free navigation app, but then there is the lure of new technology for some. Let’s see of the lure is strong enough.

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Asus, AT&T, G60, garmin, Garmin-ASUS, Nuvifone, nuvifone G60

The Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone is pretty much the topic that hits a nerve with all navigation phone enthusiasts. If you’ve been living under a rock, the reason is the absolute absence of the handset. Even the merger of the companies couldn’t make the handset happen for all its fans. Well, it seems that the unthinkable may just happen, according to a report by TWICE Garmin is “getting very close” to a carrier launch here in the US. And the reason for the delay given by Garmin president and COO Cliff Pemble is;

“Originally we thought we’d launch the phone into the open market, but because of the strong interest we had from carriers, we chose to focus on a carrier-centric launch and meeting carrier requirements is a lot of work.”

So we dare again hope for the Nuvifone.

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After the successful invention of Hardware and software, we now bring you the latest from handset manufacturers; vaporware. So who are the innovators? Garmin-ASUS of course. We’ve been expecting the nuvifone G60 for over a year and a half now, in a conference call with analysts last week, Garmin President and COO Cliff Pemble admitted that the nuvifone G60 will be delayed due to technical issues. Reason cited for the delay was; creating a smartphone such as the nuvifone G60 is “complicated” and that “bringing one to market that’s built totally from the ground up on a custom Linux platform is not an easy task.” Ok, given that is a valid one, but for the love of all that is good and holy, are 15 months really not enough, and if you really were going to have so many issues, why announce the poor beast so early. The nuvifone G60 is now slated for a 2H 09 release instead of the July debut. And when they say 2H, we know this could be Q4. Like anyone will actually want the nuvifone with the Pre, new iPhone, BlackBerry Tour, etc, etc to choose from.

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It’s been more than a year since we’ve been hearing about the Nuvifone, and now it seems that the Garmin-ASUS Nuvifone G60 is finally near release. Nothing official, but a Reuters article has placed the release sometime in June.  There still isn’t an exact date or price for us but it still seems like the handset will head for AT&T. According to the article, “a source with direct knowledge of the project” has been the source of information that ASUS will issue its first LiMo-powered handset in June. Now sine the M20 runs Windows Mobile, the Linux Mobile handset is definitely a reference to the G60. So how does a handset with LiMo and 3G rate on our scales….very very highly.

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In what can be classified as nothing short of ‘uber rumor’, word has it that the Asus P565 has been sent to the dark place where all dejected smartphones go. The reason the handset is being scratched is the grand alliance Asus has entered into with Garmin. Now why exactly is the Asus P565 so exciting? Because in addition to the mundane specs, this was going to be the one Windows Mobile 6.1 device to feature a Marvell TavorP 800 MHz processor. Just imagine a piece of equipment like that in your hands. But it seems that the P565 was supposed to have some kind of above average GPS features, hence would have offended Asus’ deal with Garmin. So far this is the only little bit that makes sense as to why the handset was pulled. Oh well, on to new horizons.

A couple of days ago, we told you that Garmin and ASUS were teaming up to bring the Nuvifone as a renamed G60, along with other models to follow soon. And true to their word, today Garmin made the news official with a press release about the latest handset from the duo; M20.

The M20 is a Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional smartphone that boasts of quad-band EDGE / tri-band 7.2Mbps HSPA chipset, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and 4 to 8 GB of internal memory all under a 2.8″ VGA touchscreen display, and of course what phone in this day and age would be deemed ‘smart’ unless it had….you guessed it…GPS. The only difference is that Garmin is working on this little beast and it will be a beast of satellite navigation alright. The handset will pretty much leave the choice of LBS to you, but Garmin ASUS recommend Ciao. Another cool thing is that the M20’s GPS chip will work even without the support of a cellular network, which means you can mount the handset onto the car dashboard mount (included in the package) and drive around blindfolded (not literally) in the Australian outback (for now) and not get lost (stared at, but not lost). (Statements within brackets end, we like M20.)

Garmin and ASUS are partnering up. One of their first moves if to re-brand the Garmin Nuvifone as the G60. The companies have both committed to bringing out more devices for us during 2009, and the first installment of this promise will be making an appearance at the MWC 2009 expo (what a surprise!) the Nuviphone lineup is characterized by its focus on navigation, but the big question is still about the OS the new handsets will be running. And a surprisingly unconventional statement from an ASUS chairman tells us; “[ASUS has] expertise in WinMo, Linux and Android, but we believe the software is more important than the OS.”

While these aren’t exactly words of undeniable wisdom, because we DO care what OS our smartphones are running on, but yes, since no OS is a real novelty anymore, the selling point of the phone won’t be the OS. But this just means they have to really throw the ball out of the software park to make the kind of impact they’re claiming here. There had been word earlier that the Nuvifone would rock Android, but changing times call for change of minds, would certainly seem so.    

Asus CEO Jonney Shih has great visions for the future we are about to enter, and he doesn’t think it’s that far away either. Shih’s vision for the future came to limelight when he confirmed the release of the affordable smartphone, Eee Phone.

As to what the future will bring, Shih had this to say;

“Today, the family crowds around a small PC screen when they are sharing digital media and getting on the Internet. In the living room, it should be more convenient to use the big screen… To make the whole digital home possible, in the eventual state every wall becomes a display. The mirror should become a screen.”

Obviously, Asus will be the centre of this future, in Shih’s mind anyway. As far as the Eee Phone is concerned, it’s a budget smartphone and will give the user a single user interface that will control the entire digital network. Shih didn’t shed light on which platform the Eee will showcase itself on, but the Android’s a good guess. Apart from the fact that the Eee Phone will be ‘affordable’ there aren’t any pricing details on it yet. There also isn’t a release date but hopefully it’ll be sometime before the year ends.

Earlier this year, ASUS had announced that it would be launching a new PDA glider phone in Taiwan. The company has now come out with a nice looking, world’s fastest business phone, the ASUS P565. The announcement came Friday and phone is certainly a piece of eye candy. But beyond that, it is grabbed a unique position as the  world’s fastest handset, powered by an 800MHz processor and a 2.8 inch VGA to show off all that is stored inside. The phone also features Asus’s Glide User Interface which has been optimized for the touch screen phone. The PDA has all the standard features, top of the list being on a Windows Mobile platform.

Pricing and release date have yet to be made public. Also, it seems improbable the ASUS P565 will see the US soil, the phone sadly misses out on the US 850MHz band the US 3G bands. But at least there’s a cool new phone out in the world and a damn fast one at that. Let’s just revel in that joy.

Review of Specs:

1.      HSDPA 3.6Mbps, UMTS 2100, EDGE/GPRS/GSM 900/1800/1900, Class 10

2.      Microsoft Windows Mobile 6.1 Professional

3.      2.8″ TFT, 65K-color Touch screen, VGA (480 x 640 pixels) Display

4.      Marvell TavorP 800 MHz Processor

5.      256 MB Flash + 128 MB DDR SDRAM

6.      MicroSD with SDHC support

7.      WLAN 802.11b+g

8.      Bluetooth 2.0+EDR

9.      GPS : SiRF Star III with InstantFix

10.  WAP Browser / SMS / MMS / Email / MSN / Push E-mail

11.  Battery : 1300 mAh Li-Ion

12.  Standby Time : 250-300 hrs with 3G and 200-250 hrs with 2G

13.  Talk Time : 3 hrs with 3G and 4 hrs with 2G

14.  Dimensions : 102 mm x 60.5 mm x 16 mm

Asus phone

ASUS has just recently announced the launching of its new PDA cell phone. It’s called the ASUS P552w.  

On the onset, the phone looks just like every other PDA or Smartphone in the market, but when you take a closer, scrupulous look, you realize this phone comes with a unique and rather exciting feature.  This is the Glide function and it’s a total first timer with the ASUS P552w.  The Glide functions, as described by ASUS, is a touch-responsive user interface that makes navigating in the phone and performing a wide range of tasks more intuitive as well as interactive. It’s just short of being a touch-screen phone, you may even call it the next best thing to the touch-screen. By making smart use of the Gester technology, the Glide function gives users the luxury of selecting, zooming, scrolling and flipping easily through the navigation menu with light finger touches. It just takes you a few finger taps to get the latest news, view photo slide shows, listen to music, check the weather forecasts, etc.

The ASUS P552w is a grab-bag of the latest features. It comes with 624MHz processor, a 3.5G HSDPA connectivity and built-in GPS. One of the beast things about this phone is it’s smooth, seamless integration with Google Services. The target market for the ASUS P552w is the ever increasing population of young tech savvy professionals. The phone also featuresMulti-Home, Anytime Launcher, EziPhoto and EziMusic applications.

Coming to how powerful the phone is, the P552W works with a 624MHZ CPU which enables the phone to run applications and games faster and video frame rates much smoother. To compliment this great capacity, the phone has a 3 B HSDPA connectivity which provides the fastest mobile internet browsing experience you can imagine. You get to share files and stream TV programming like never before. It also has Bluetooth, WLAN, GPS, USB and other connectivity features. And like I said earlier, the P552w phone integrates seamlessly with Google’ various mobiles web services such as Google Maps and Google Search Bar.

Last, but not least, the Asus P552w comes pre-installed with various cool applications including EziPhoto, EziMusic, quick access to YouTube and Flickr. The Asus P552w will be released in Taiwan first but there isn’t any information available on the pricing of this cool set. Let’s see what happens.