The delays are at last over; the Garmin-Asus Garmin-Asus nüvifone G60 went on sale this week in Taiwan. Singapore and Malaysia are set to follow in late August. It will land in Europe and the U.S. later in 2009.
"We can’t wait for our customers to start using a nüvifone," said Cliff Pemble, Garmin’s president and COO. "Our lives are all about location. The nüvifone is designed around that premise and that’s what differentiates it from the myriad of other phones on the market."
The Garmin-Asus nüvifone G60 is powered by a Linux operating system. It comes with quad-band (850/900/1800/1900MHz) GSM/GPRS/EDGE and tri-band (850/1900/2100MHz) HSDPA connectivity, a 3.55-inch WQVGA touchscreen display (with three primary icons – “Call,” “Search,” and “View Map” and secondary icons on the side), 128MB RAM and 4GB flash memory, built-in GPS, 802.11 b/g Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 2.0 (with A2DP), built-in accelerometer, a 3MP camera with auto-focus and geo-tagging, a microSDHC card slot (up to 16GB), and a 1100mAh battery.
The Garmin-Asus nüvifone M20, powered by Windows Mobile, will also go on sale in August in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. It will also head to Europe later in the year but a North American release does not appear to be in the cards at this time.