AT&T and Garmin pair up to make a great phone and GPS smartphone: a tech gadget dream!
Monday, October 12th, 2009
Smartphones have integrated many helpful features: video, camera, calculator, clock, e-mail, texting, and more. There have always been a GPS function on smartphones that you could trial for 30 days or buy. But, the GPS function has been more of a way to navigate around town, and at best has been a glorified pedestrian GPS.
Now, AT&T and Garmin have teamed up to create the Nuvifone that is part phone, part auto and pedestrian GPS. If you’re driving, and want turn-by-turn directions, just use the suction cup to mount it on the windshield. When you want it as a phone, just pop it out of the suction cup and talk. With some GPS units, you get “turn in 200 feet” instructions. This GPS is specific by having you turn at specific street names to avoid wrong turns. The speech is natural and the tech support is easy to follow and set up.
Other notable features the Nuvifone has are:
- White Pages & Yellow Pages info to find people and businesses
- Gas-station app to show which stations are near you and at what cost
- Movie app for nearby show times
- Windows sync program to keep your contacts and calendar up to date on your PC
- Real-time traffic info
The bummer is that for all of these features you have to pay $6/month. It would have been nice if these options were
thrown in for free - after all, this is a new phone that consumers have to be driven to over the iPhone and Blackberry.
Another cool feature, that is actually free, is that it utilized the GPS functionality nicely. When you call someone from your address book, you can also quickly get a map of where they live and easily get to their place. Also, you can easily get on the Internet and send e-mails.
Should you buy it? At $300 and a 2-year AT&T term, this device is better suited for a GPS and not a phone. It is
bulkier than an iPhone and its navigation is not fluid on the phone and e-mail end. If you are a big traveler, and need your phone occasionally, than this is perfect for you. However, if you talk and e-mail consistently throughout the day, you should wait until AT&T and Garmin reduces the size and simplifies the navigation.
that anyone would love to toy with. 
was available and everyone was excited to get their hands on them.
but it will provide more stability, faster loading, and some nice complementary features.
enthusiast like we are, we’ll be checking out the Mac store anyway to confirm for sure if there are any macs with Snow Leopard installed.
Twitter might have been a fad also if it didn’t keep up with the new iPhones as a way to communicate. Now, you can set up Twitterrific 2.1 on your iPhone so you can stay in the loop of your Followers and those Following you.
Finally, Dell has gotten into the smartphone war. It is looking to take a piece of the pie from the iPhone and
your TV, DVD, VCR, and other components and streamline them all into sleek remote control. The Logitech remote control offers a sharp LCD for the current status; touchscreen buttons for navigation, and is all programmable via
suite of software:
This Google Mobile Apps is a must-have for
You might have heard of
Microsoft Word, Quickbooks, and other software. All you’ll need is an Internet browser and then you’ll be able to run programs through it. Obviously, you’ll need to make sure your 


