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There were many rumors circulating on the Internet concerning a collaboration between Garmin and Asus (ever since last summer), but the news wasn’t official until a couple of days ago, when the two companies made the highly anticipated announcement. This means that they teamed up with one purpose and one purpose only in mind, more precisely to co-develop the first ever Garmin-branded cell phone. This is the main purpose, of course, because, as a secondary goal, they will develop a couple of mobiles phones based on location, which are expected to become available sometime this year.



In the given context, prepare yourselves for the first Garmin cell phone, which will be released under the name of Garmin-Asus nüvifone G60. The device will be equipped with the following features: a quad-band GSM and tri-band HSDPA, a very large display which is touch-sensitive and comes with a virtual QWERTY keyboard, the Garmin-branded software for navigation (it has turn-by-turn directions), pre-loaded maps and a great number of applications based on location, Wi-Fi connectivity, Webkit-based HTML browser and Stereo Bluetooth.



“We believe that converged devices are an emerging opportunity”, said Dr. Min Kao, chairman and CEO of Garmin LTD. In addition, he said that “this alliance is advantageous to both companies because it allows us to combine our resources and establish a strong foundation from which we will innovate and introduce the world to the benefits of LBS-centric mobile phones. We’ve been working with ASUS for over one year on the initial nüvifone that was announced in 2008 on the basis of an ODM relationship. Learning from this experience, we concluded that by leveraging and combining our respective industry-leading areas of expertise at a higher level, we will be able not only to significantly expand our product line, but also to shorten our product development time”.



If the collaboration between Garmin and Asus was unveiled to the large public during a press conference that took place in Taiwan, on February 4, the first ever Garmin cell phone will be presented at the Mobile World Congress that will be held in Barcelona.

(Source: Press release)