Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60

By John Chan, CNET Asia
Jul 28, 2009

Garmin announced the nuvifone in early 2008 and it was supposed to be available about a year ago. Since then, the company has entered into a partnership with Asus and will finally ship the device in the next few weeks as the Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60.

Design

The design of the G60 hasn't changed much since its original announcement. It comes in a black soft-touch finish with silver trimmings and has clean front facade with just the screen and nuvifone brand printed under that. The screen measures 3.55 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels. This LCD is unique in that it has a matte finish. Most mobile phone touchscreens are glossy, and while that makes colors stand out more, it can be a nuisance when viewed in direct sunlight due to reflections. Because of the handset's focus on in-car navigation, the matte surface is ideal. It feels good to the touch, too, not unlike one of those high-quality screen protectors that retail for about S$12.

The dimensions of the G60 are 112 x 58.1 x 14.6mm and it weighs 137g. This isn't the lightest phone around, but the size and weight are quite similar to other full-touchscreen smartphones like the iPhone and Samsung Omnia.

A power button adorns the top of the device, along with a 2.5mm audio port. We would have preferred a 3.5mm version as that would have been compatible with most standard headphones. To be fair, it's better than having no audio jack at all. The right side is where volume controls and a camera shortcut are found. All other I/O ports are on the left side including a mini-USB, microSD card slot and a dock connector.

Provided with the G60 is a comprehensive car kit for in-car navigation. Bundled are a dock that attaches to a windscreen and a car charger which draws power from a car cigarette lighter. The suction base and charger worked well in our tests and were easy to install.

On the back, you'll find the Garmin-Asus logo beside the camera lens. Above this lens is the speaker for speakerphone functions and turn-by-turn instructions.

Features

As a mobile device, the G60 comes with quite a number of wireless features. These include HSPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Like some other smartphones, you can share the nuvifone G60's HSPA connection with a computer using a USB cable. Unfortunately, this can't be done wirelessly through Bluetooth.

The interface of this nuvifone is quite unlike most phones. Turning it on, you'll see three large icons labeled Call, Search and View Map, while other functions appear in a scrollable list with smaller icons. Let's explore the mobile phone features first. Tapping on Call will bring you to the phone app where you can make calls and access your contacts list. Aside from importing contacts from a SIM card, you can also sync your Outlook data using a bundled Windows app.

Text messages appear in a threaded format so you can track your conversations with contacts easily. There doesn't appear to be any way to send multimedia messages (MMS) and sending one to the nuvifone doesn't work either. Setting up email is pretty simple. We tried it out with a Gmail account and all the settings were automatically filled in for us. Attachments such as PDFs, Microsoft Word and Excel documents and images can be viewed, but not edited. Typing on the G60 is achieved through an onscreen keyboard. This worked fine for us in landscape mode, with large keys laid out in QWERTY format that can be tapped on with the thumbs. In portrait mode though, the keys are laid out in alphabetical order in five rows. We don't know what possessed the company to arrange it this way but we found it impossible to use. There is no option to switch that to QWERTY and we ended up switching to landscape orientation every time text input was needed.

Tags: Garmin Nuvifone, Garmin Ltd., Smart Phone, speakerphone, ASUS

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