Android-powered Garminfone navigating to T-Mobile this spring
T-Mobile's launching a new Android device, but it's not exactly the one we were expecting. Meet the new Garminfone.
On Tuesday night,
Instead of the rumored
With Garmin behind the wheel, obviously navigation will play a big role. The Garminfone will offer many of the features found on the company's standalone GPS devices, including preloaded maps of North America, a database of nearly 6 million points of interest, and voice-guided navigation with text-to-speech directions. You'll also get lane guidance, junction view, and a new Android app called Garmin Voice Studio, which lets users record and share voice directions with friends and family. The phone's GPS capabilities can also be used to locate nearby gas prices, restaurants and movie times, real-time traffic, and weather data.
As a phone, the Garminfone sports a 3.5-inch capacitive touch screen and measures 4.57 inches tall by 2.45 inches wide by 0.51 inch thick. It will run Android 1.6 at launch, but T-Mobile was quick to point out that the phone is capable of over-the-air updates. You'll get the standard Android apps--Gmail, Google Talk, YouTube, Android Market, and so forth--but the device will sport Garmin's own user interface.
Some other quick specs to check off the list: 3G, Bluetooth 2.1, Wi-Fi, HTML Web browser with pinch-to-zoom support, and a 3-megapixel camera with autofocus and digital zoom.
Pricing was not announced at this time, though you can find more details from T-Mobile's Web site. We'll be honest: we were really apprehensive about the Nuvifone A50 after the fiasco that was the