Garmin enters the mobile phone market with the nuviphone
On Wednesday (1/30/08) Garmin unveiled its new product, the nuviphone. It is a GSM/HSDPA phone as well as a personal navigation device. On the outside its design is similar to that of the iPhone. It also features a touch screen, like the iPhone.
According to Garmin the device will not be on the market until the third quarter, and negotiations with carriers are currently under way. NPD Group analyst Ross Rubin believes "the pricing will be key to the nuvifone’s success," and AT&T Mobility will most likely reach a deal with Garmin. He expects the price to be around $300. Rubin also said the announcement of the nuviphone took the market off-guard, as everyone expects most new smartphones to be unveiled at next month's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to Rubin the nuviphone works on Garmin's own operating system and is therefore not a smartphone.
The nuviphone has three primary icons including call, search and view map functions. It can be mounted on a vehicle's dashboard and comes with preloaded maps of North America and Europe. It will have Google's local search capability and will provide turn-by-turn directions to any location. You can take a picture, send it to another nuviphone user and their nuviphone will give them turn-by-turn directions to the location of the pic. It also has a video camera, MP3 player and MPEG4/AAC.
Information about memory capacity, battery life, browsing capabilities and business support should become clear once a carrier deal is reached.
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