AT&T and Garmin today announced plans to start selling the Personal Navigation Device (PND) manufacturer's first phone for the U.S. market. We've been following news about the Garmin-Asus Nuvifone G60 for quite some time, from when it was just a hunk of black plastic under glass, and now the phone will finally be available in AT&T stores this weekend, beginning October 4. The linux-based GPS phone won't come cheap, though. Customers will pay $300 after a $100 mail-in rebate, so you'll need at least $400 in hand to buy the Garmin Nuvifone G60, even with a 2-year contract agreement.
We don't know much about the depth of the Linux interface on the Nuvifone G60, but clearly deep GPS integration is the name of the game. Unlike most GPS-enabled cell phones, though, the Nuvifone shares some benefits with the Garmin Nuvi family of PNDs. For one thing, maps and points-of-interest are preloaded onto the device. So, if you're out of network range but you still get a clear GPS signal, the Nuvifone will have no trouble planning your route or suggesting alternate routes if you go astray. The phone uses a real, bona fide GPS receiver with Garmin's own HotFix technology, in addition to the assisted-GPS found in most cell phones.
For GPS features, the phone comes packed with goodies. You can start navigating directly from a contact listing in your address book, or you can even tap a mailing address on a Web site and the Garmin Nuvifone G60 will translate the address into GPS coordinates and plan a route. The phone also features Garmin's "Where am I?" function. With one touch, the Garmin Nuvifone G60 will tell you your exact latitude and longitude, the nearest address and intersection, the nearest hospital, police station and gas station. The phone even comes preloaded with software that will mark the position of your parked car to help you find it again later.
In addition to these standard features, Garmin will also be offering a Premium Connected Services package that will supplement the basic Web and navigation features on the device. While basic Web features will be available as part of the AT&T data plan, Garmin will also offer a subscription service for real-time traffic information, local fuel prices, White Pages searching, weather and more. These Premium services will be available for $6 per month, after a 30-day trial period.
If you'd rather do the legwork and look that information up yourself, the Garmin Nuvifone G60 features a full-HTML browser for Web browsing on the go. In addition, the new phone uses a 3-megapixel camera with auto focus for pictures, and of course geotagging will feature prominently into the photo app.
The Garmin Nuvifone G60 will be available in AT&T stores on October 4 for $300 with a contract agreement. We'll have a full review of the device as soon as we can get our hands on a finalized unit. Until then, check out our original hands-on story.
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