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Garmin Joins the Cell Phone Race with nuvifone

Thursday, January 31st, 2008 at 8:10 AM - by

GPS maker Garmin jumped into the cell phone game on Thursday when the company announced its nuvifone mobile phone. The nuvifone sports an iPhone-esque touch screen interface and body shape, 3.5G wireless data networking, and includes a built-in GPS.


Garmin's nuvifone

Also like the iPhone, Garmin's all-in-one includes a Web browser, personal messaging, Google map searching, built-in camera, and music playback features. It also offers the same GPS functions found in Garmin's other nuvi products like pre-loaded maps, voice-prompted directions, and a points of interest database.

While Garmin has teamed with other cell phone manufactures to bring its technology to smart phones, this marks the first time the company has produced a phone of its own. If other electronics companies join Apple, and now Garmin, in making their own cell phones, companies like Sony Ericsson and Nokia may find it even harder to hold onto customers.

Garmin expects to ship the nuvifone some time in the third quarter of 2008, but has not yet announced pricing or which cell carriers it will partner with.

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