Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 revealed

For the "active on-the-go user who wants an easy-to-use device"

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12 February 2009 9:42 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

Garmin-Asus, the GPS smartphone team-up, has announced the Garmin-Asus nuvifone M20 and the nuvifone G60, providing details of spec for both forthcoming phones.

The companies say the nuvifone G60 is designed for the "active on-the-go user who wants an easy-to-use device and appreciates the peace of mind that comes from a device that answers common questions like 'Where am I?', 'Where am I going?' and 'How do I get home?'"

The quad-band GSM nuvifone with 3.5G boasts a 3.55-inch touchscreen display with three primary icons – "Call", "Search", and "View Map". Secondary icons appear on the side of the home screen and can be organised by user preference.

With a built-in accelerometer, every screen can be viewed in either portrait or landscape orientation. The G60 supports POP3 and IMAP4 email such as Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail and offers a QWERTY keyboard.

On the navigation side, there's preloaded maps of North America or Eastern and Western Europe, and has millions of points of interests including hotels, restaurants and street addresses.

The nuvifone G60 gets location-based services added to everyday applications including email, SMS, photo sharing, social networking and more.

Users get access to a suite of online applications from Garmin-Asus that adds location intelligence to navigation, phone and browser functions.

The expandable list of applications and content includes real-time traffic information, White Pages, weather, flight status, local events, and movie times.

In addition, the device offers "Ciao!", described as a "ground-breaking" LBS application that helps users stay up to date on their friends' whereabouts and status by linking numerous location-centric social networks.

With a 3-megapixel camera with auto-focus, the phone will automatically geotag images with an exact latitude and longitude reference.

Garmin-Asus says it will announce the nuvifone G60's pricing and availability in the first half of 2009.