Asus and Garmin launch Nuvifone G60 and M20 location-based phones in India

Posted on 12-10-2009

Asus and Garmin made heads turn when they announced they were partnering to make GPS-oriented cell phones under the Nuvifone brand. Now, the alliance has unveiled the Garmin-Asus Nuvifones M20 and G60 in the Indian market, both priced at about Rs. 30,000.

Boasting compact designs and intuitive usability, these location-based mobiles aim to introduce location-centric approach in the lifestyle of the Indian people through their location-based services.

"The Garmin-Asus Nuvifone series is an industry first to integrate a cutting-edge personal navigator with a premium phone. All in all, the nuvifone series will act as a complete package for the smart phone buyers as it will bring people together via location based services," said Mr. Edward Wang (Business Head, Mobile Communication Business, ASUS).

“NAVTEQ is delighted that Garmin-Asus has chosen to use NAVTEQ’s premium navigable maps of India in their Nuvifone series,” said Mr. Rajat Tandon (Director, Sales-India, NAVTEQ).

Research indicates that when Indians ask for directions, the most commonly requested destinations are city centres and the most commonly provided cues include bank, hospitals, movie theaters and places of worship. The NAVTEQ map of India includes a significant collection of these commonly referred to ‘Points of Interest’ (PoI).

Connect and Communicate

Although navigation is a key component of the Nuvifone series, the devices do more than just navigate. Both the Nuvifone G60 and M20 incorporate top-of-the-line phone capabilities with premium features such as 3.5G data connectivity, SMS text messaging, email, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and more.

The Nuvifone G60 and M20 have a full HTML browser that customers can easily zoom in or pan with their finger, and pages may be viewed in either portrait or landscape. Users can surf the web on their phone via Wi-Fi or 3G networks, and the pages are presented similar to a PC browser.

Everything You Need

Customers will also enjoy the benefit of location-based services seamlessly integrated with Nuvifone’s intuitive user interface and turn-by-turn navigation. Users can supplement the preloaded PoI data with Internet-enabled local searches and automatically navigate around traffic congestion while seeing the estimated traffic delay along their route. Other unique features are:

Location Link: Helps the user to reach his desired location by just selecting the PoI and then by navigating to the desired destination.
Send your Location: This function helps the user to send across his location to his friends so that they can stay connected 24x7
Carfinder: This application helps the user to easily find his car even in an outdoor parking, the phone automatically marks the position where it is last disconnected from its car mount.
Geo-tagged Photos: It helps the user to take a geo-tagged photo and he can further send it to his friends. With this application, the user can also navigate to the location in geo-tagged photo and can get location information.
Ciao: A unique LBS application that helps users stay up to date on their friends’ whereabouts and status by linking location-centric social networks.
Panoramio: With this application the user can navigate to the geo-tagged photos. It is basically a geo-tagged photo sharing Website wherein you can view beautiful geo tagged pictures in your area to get navigational directions to their location.
Weather Status: It helps the user to stay updated about the current and the five day weather forecasts.
Flight Status: Helps the user to check flight information from around the world.
Currency Converter: A one touch access for currency conversions.

Other features, specifications and price

The Nuvifone G60 and M20 include a built-in camera with auto-focus. The camera automatically geotags images with an exact latitude and longitude reference of where the image was taken. The user may then save the image so they can navigate back to the location, or email the geo-tagged image to others.

The Nuvifone also provides direct access to millions of geo-located landmark and sightseeing photographs available through select picture sharing site, which are searchable and are sorted by the distance from the current location.