Garmin‘s just unleashed two new lines of GPS units, the nüvi1200 and 1300 models. Both lines are capable of pedestrian navigation (making use of CityXplorer maps), which is totally awesome if, like us, you use the GPS to get you where you’re going, then get lost as soon as you set foot outside your vehicle. The new, super-slim nüvis come in 3.5-inch (1200) and 4.5-inch (1300) variations, and some models in the lines will offer features such as Bluetooth and text-to-speech, and all of them feature Garmin’s free lifetime traffic service. The new units should be available in North America in the second quarter of 2009, for prices ranging from $250-$300. Hit the read link for the full release after the break.
Sad business if true, but the UnwiredView is reporting that ASUS’ P565 Windows Mobile 6.1-toting, VGA, HSDPA, Blazing 800MHz (Marvell PXA930) monster has been quietly dumped. The reason? Nobody’s talking and we’ve not heard reports from either Garmin or ASUS to verify it either way — it has apparently launched in Germany and Poland, at least — but according to GPSAndCo, its debut in France isn’t happening and they point to the new partnership as the reason. In the end, it does seem as if the Garmin / ASUS team is going to deliver some pretty serious goods, so we’ll not shed a tear unless something happens to them, too. Of course, this could all be fluff, so do tell us if you catch sight of one of these at your local shop.
Garmin says sales of portable GPS systems, or portable navigation devices (PNDs), will be flat in 2009. In a phone conference with analysts, Gramin president and COO Cliff Pemble described 2009 as a “difficult year,” according to TWICE. Garmin has about half the U.S. market share and dominates even more at the high end, although the market is skewed 85-15 toward lower end PNDs, Garmin says. While flat sales are bad news for PND-makers, it’s good news for customers who’ll see better pricing from makers who remain in the business, as well as great close-out prices from those who drop out. The unspoken problem: A lot of people bought a first GPS 2-4 years ago, upgraded 1-2 years ago, and don’t see the reason to upgrade quite so soon again.
Why it matters: You’ll buy better portable GPS units at lower prices this year, if you’ve still got a job. And flat PND sales and reduced prices adds pressure on automakers to find ways to sell onboard navigation for $1,000 not $1,500.
Here’s a little tidbit to start your morning: According to the New York Times, one year ago today, Toshiba, creator of HD DVD, conceded to Sony’s rival Blu-ray format. Take a look at Gearlog’s deals for Thursday, February 19 (especially the first one!):
1. Save some big bucks on a three-pack of Blu-ray discs from Amazon.com today. Choose from the Action Bundle, which includes Casino Royale, Black Hawk Down, and Hellboy; the Love and Marriage Bundle, with Made of Honor, The Other Boleyn Girl, and Across the Universe; or the Comedy Bundle, with Superbad, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, and Talladega Nights. Normally all three Blu-ray discs would come out to about to be as much as $117, but with this offer, you’ll save 65 percent. The deal ends today, so get on it.
2. MacMall is knee-deep in its Apple Blowout Deals with up to 83 percent off of select Macs, iPods, software, accessories, and more. Save up to $84 on MacBooks, $1,044 on MacBook Pros, and $1,194 on MacBook Airs. Also, orders of over $49 get free shipping with this mail-in rebate. The sale ends on February 24. [Via Dealnews.com]
3. If you’re the type of person who gets lost all the time while driving, but is too proud to ask for directions, you’re in luck. Best Buy is having a sale of 10 to 33 percent off of select GPS receivers. Get the Garmin Nuvi 255 GPS in Piano Black for $179.99 (normally $229.99).
We know, there was an absolute flood of news from Mobile World Congress today, but day one in Spain has finally come to a close, and it looks like Microsoft is flexing all its muscle to try and lock up partners and rejoin the fight for mobile dominance. Seriously, this is Redmond’s show: we haven’t seen a new, non-prototype Android handset powered up yet, and that’s frankly astonishing and somewhat disappointing. What else did we learn?
We got a bumpy car ride through Barcelona, and handled the newly spruced-up and official Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 along the way. The phone has come a very long way since we last saw it, with a snappy, smooth interface, and nary a glitch or crash. The touchscreen keyboard — usable in portrait and landscape modes — is no pretender to the iPhone’s throne, but is one of the best we’ve seen on a resistive touch device. We also found the WebKit-based browser to be one of the smoother ones we’ve seen outside the T-Mobile G1 and the iPhone. The phone is pretty slow when reorienting itself or entering certain applications, and, as feared, there seems a general lack of depth to the functionality of the actual “smartphone” features like calendar or contacts, but the location-based services — in the car and out — really do bring a lot to the table.
Update: we added a video after the break, pardon the bumps!
So, we played around with the new Windows Mobile-sportin’ nuvifone M20 from Garmin-Asus this evening, but there’s really not much to say: the software is barely even alpha at this point. Most every tap or swipe of the screen was met with a two or more second delay, and we managed to crash a couple of the phones. That said, it’s clear that Garmin-Asus aren’t just adding a pretty launcher to Windows Mobile and calling it a day, there’s some good navigation and location-based stuff happening here, and we look forward to playing around with it all once it’s closer to reality. We don’t look forward to meeting the resistive touch screen a second time, but we’ll just have to live with that fact — at least the Garmin-Asus apps are all touch-optimized, but you might have to pull out the stylus for a gander at the rest of Windows Mobile 6.1.
Update: Official media handed out for the M20 reveals a small handful of new screen shots, mainly a swanky new media player and calling screen that really don’t say a damned thing about the M20’s deep-rooted nav capabilities. Thing is, when you have a winged disco ball, you can get away with bending a whole lotta rules — but yeah, this is one phone where we think we’d rather let the hardware do the talking.
I got some quality time with a Garmin Nuviphone G60, riding around Barcelona in the back of a jet-black Mercedes limo. My hands-on impression: This smartphone-meets-GPS-meets-media-player feels like a winner.
I don’t know what it really is: A cellphone that is a GPS or a GPS that is a cellphone. Of course, the cellphone has everything you can expect from a such a device these days, including a 3-megapixel camera (with a real shutter button, like it should be) and a music player, everything tied to the GPS. This seems to be the main point of the Garmin G60: Everything revolves around geo-location.
Physically, the Garmin G60 has a good size: A good feeling on your hand, thicker than you-know-who, but light and comfortable. The thing is made to be integrated on your car dashboard—it comes with a cradle with a suction cup—but it works in your hand as a smartphone just fine.
The first thing I noticed was the complete lack of buttons, except for volume and camera shutter on the right side. On the front, there are no physical buttons whatsoever, just a nice, colorful 3.5-inch touchscreen.
As you can see in the video, the Linux-based operating system is quite agile and appeared solid, although the full HTML browser stalled forever trying to load a page-which is probably a fault of the 3G connection rather than the G60 itself, even while it is still a beta prototype.
The interface seems polished, it feels fast and responsive, very bright and clean, with colorful icons. It’s centered around three main icons, which I’m sure are the ones Garmin wants to emphasize: Call, Search, and View Map. Call and View Map are quite straightforward, with Search giving you several options, from consulting the six million points of interests—already pre-loaded with the North America or European maps built-in the G60—to the on-the-fly Google local search application. This section feels very much like one of their previous GPS, giving you access to Favorites, Contact, or Recently Found addresses, and allowing to visit or calling any place on one click.
On the side (or bottom, if you are in landscape mode-the Garmin G60 has an accelerator to know this, although it didn’t feel very sensitive while I was trying it) you can see a scrolling list of icons, which gives you access to the other features of the G60, from the camera to the web browser to the Ciao! geolocation based social service to widgets like weather. While the main three buttons can’t be changed for the ones in the side list, the whole user interface is well organized and easy to use.
My impression from the hands-on is that Garmin has made what they know to do best—a GPS—and they combined it with a 3G smartphone is a smooth way. The result is a nicely balanced unit that has the advantage of having everything you expect in a GPS and all the features you expect in a modern smartphone, all under an easy to use interface.
We will give you a more extensive verdict once we get a final unit, which is supposed to arrive in the first half of 2009.
I guess that if the Garmin Nuviphone G60 is a GPS smartphone, the Garmin Nuviphone M20 Windows Mobile is a smartphone GPS. It’s quite smaller than the G60, but the demo didn’t work quite right.
It seems that the Garmin Nuviphone M20 we tried—which still doesn’t have a release date—is an early prototype. As a result, we couldn’t try the customized GPS-based search and maps programs: Every time we tried, it kept giving a location services initialization problem. We were told look very similar to the G60, but you just can’t see it in the video. The rest of the phone-developed by Asus-seems OK after our brief hands-on. Garmin has created special skins to mask the furrible Windows Mobile interface.
Physically, the cellphone feels light and compact on your hand, with a nice, colorful finish. The fact that it requires a stylus—even while you can actually use your finger or nail, if you are Ming of Mongo—made it quite awkward to me, although that may just be my personal preference after hours of iPhone fingering.
We will have to wait for a more mature unit to give you our full impressions.
You know it people. It’s the Engadget Podcast, back on the most terrifying Friday in February (or any month for that matter) — the 13th. This week you get to hear the dudes discuss the Kindle 2 / Stephen King encounters, new offerings from Garmin on the mobile front, predictions for Mobile World Congress (which starts next week), and so, so, so much more. Settle in and get ready to glide on the gentle sounds of Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel, and special guest host Chris Ziegler. We guarantee you’ll love it.
Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Nilay Patel Special guest host: Chris Ziegler Producer: Trent Wolbe Song:Friday the 13th theme
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