Garmin and ASUS join forces to create location-centric handsets

Ever wish you could have Garmin navigation technology included with your mobile handset? Well soon you’ll be able to! Garmin and ASUS formally announced a strategic alliance today to build a line of “location-centric” mobile phones. The upcoming line, known as the Garmin-ASUS nüvifone series, will be rolling out this year headlined by the G60 model which will be announced at the upcoming Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona.

The two companies have actually been working together for over a year with their first model being that new G60 model. It was originally known as the nüvifone handset but has since been rebranded as the Garmin-ASUS nüvifone G60. Newer nüvifone products will also continue the vision of the original G60 and offer Location-based Services capabilities such as turn by turn, voice prompted navigation typically found on high-end Garmin portable navigation devices, and pre-loaded maps with millions of points of interest.

Features of the nüvifone G60 handset include:

Quad-band voice
Tri-band data
Wi-Fi 802.11b/g with WPA encryption
Desktop web experience with full HTML browser
Location based apps including real-time traffic information, gas prices, flight times, weather, etc
Geo-tagged SMS, email, and photo sharing
Ciao! Location-based Social Networking platform
Large display with portrait and landscape view of each screen
Virtual QWERTY keyboard with touch-screen
Garmin navigation experience with voice prompted turn by turn directions that speaks street names
Optimized for pedestrian or automobile use with included car mount
One-step navigation from contacts, email, and local search results
“Where am I?” safety feature displays your current address and nearest police, hospital, and fuel services in one click
Pedestrian mode for in-hand navigation