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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

Finally some news of AT&T, an internal list of pre-launch phones has found its way to the interweb, and it talks of good things for all you AT&T folks. According the list, the following handsets are going to be coming our way very soon;

• BlackBerry 9700 in charcoal
• Garmin Nuvifone G60
• HTC Tilt 2, HTC Tilt 2 without camera
• HTC Pure (believe it’s the HTC Snap)

The exact time-line of these handsets isn’t clear, we could be looking at anything between a two weeks to three month wait.

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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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The way things are going for Sprint on the financial front, not to mention the dwindling customer base, it’s no big surprise that the carrier is looking to diversify. Firstly, Sprint is already supporting the Amazon Kindle Whispernet service, that supplies a wide range of eBooks to the eReader and helps the Kindle stand out in its crowd. Sprint also has a contract with Ford by which it will enable select 2009 truck models with wireless data connectivity. So what else is on the menu? Well, rumor has it that Sprint is now at the table with Garmin, Eastman Kodak and SanDisk talking about adding EV-DO and presumably WiMax capability to what are traditionally non-wireless devices. So is there a market out there for a point and shoot camera or HD pocket camcorder that can take pictures and instantly upload them on the internet? You bet there is. We live in the day and age of connectivity, and if Sprint can pull this off, it’s looking at huge revenues that won’t be affected if admin charges go up a bit or ETF is waived…just sayin’…the company needs to secure its future while still providing value.

The time that Garmin took in launching its navigation-centered Nuviphone can hardly be considered smart and that doesn’t mean the rest of the world is a slumber. Oh no, Garmin is looking at a rocky trail ahead. Mio is just about to give Garmin some heavy duty competition in the form of Explora K70. Mio announced last year that it was planning on making an entrance into the mobile handset world and boy has the Taiwan based GPS company come out with a bombshell. Just check out the specs on this baby;

1.      Windows Mobile Professional 6.1

2.      Quad band GSM / GPRS / EDGE connectivity (850/900/1800/1900 MHz)

3.      Tri band HSDPA / HSUPA connectivity (850/1900/2100 MHz)

3.5  inch TFT 240 x 400 touchscreen display

4.      Qualcomm MSM7201A 528MHz processor

5.      Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP, USB 2.0

6.      3 megapixel camera, autofocus, geotagging support

7.      256MB ROM, 128MB RAM

8.      MicroSDHC support

9.      Accelerometer

10.  GPS usage time: up to 4 hours

11.  Talk time: up to 4.5 hours

12.  Stand-by time: up to 200 hours

13.  115 x 61.5 x 11.9 mm, 115 grams

Details about pricing and release date are MIA for now, but don’t expect Mio to keep this little monster locked away for long.

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.