Garmin Nuvifone M20 Smartphone (Aborted) Video Hands-On

I guess that if the Garmin Nuvifone G60 is a GPS smartphone, the Garmin Nuvifone M20 Windows Mobile is a smartphone GPS. It’s quite smaller than the G60, but the demo didn’t work quite right.

It seems that the Garmin Nuvifone M20 we tried—which still doesn’t have a release date—is an early prototype. As a result, we couldn’t try the customised GPS-based search and maps programs: Every time we tried, it kept giving a location services initialisation problem. We were told look very similar to the G60, but you just can’t see it in the video. The rest of the phone-developed by Asus-seems OK after our brief hands-on. Garmin has created special skins to mask the furrible Windows Mobile interface.

Physically, the mobile phone feels light and compact on your hand, with a nice, colorful finish. The fact that it requires a stylus—even while you can actually use your finger or nail, if you are Ming of Mongo—made it quite awkward to me, although that may just be my personal preference after hours of iPhone fingering.

We will have to wait for a more mature unit to give you our full impressions.