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Garmin nuvifone Is First Dedicated GPS Device With a Built-In Phone

by Tim Stevens on January 31, 2008 at 12:29 PM

Garmin Announces nuvifone

There are plenty of phones out there with GPS capabilities -- services that help you get from A to B with simple on-screen prompts -- but these are not always free and suffer from the small screens typical of most mobile handsets. Conversely, there are also plenty of dedicated GPS devices that can interact with your phone via Bluetooth, acting, essentially as wireless hands-free speakerphones. Now Garmin has announced what looks to be a full-fledged GPS device with an actual phone built-in, the Garmin nüvifone (dig that Euro-style-spelling!).

No, this isn't a new brand of ice cream or frozen yogurt -- it is, in fact, a GPS first and a phone second. This means it has a big, GPS-device-style 3.5-inch touch-screen for accessing its features, which include navigation, of course, along with a Web browser, a media player, and a camera. Interestingly, the device will tag any photos with the location where they were snapped, so you can plot your vacation after the fact, or use a photo to find your way back to a place.

The nüvifone will also help you find your car in a giant parking lot, like the ones at the Mall of America, by tagging your parking location when you arrive.

So far, a price is not announced, nor is any specific availability information beyond a vague "sometime in the third-quarter of this year," but we can't wait to get our hands on it.

Garmin Nuvifone



From Engadget

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Tags: Garmin, GPS, nuvifone

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