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Shown
is a Garminfone in
San Francisco
on Tuesday. If you've been eyeing a personal navigation device
but wish it could make calls and surf the Web, the Garminfone
may sound appealing.
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ELDORADO NATIONAL FOREST, Calif. - If
you've been eyeing a personal navigation device but wish it could make
calls and surf the Web, the Garminfone may sound appealing.
And in some ways, it is. The device from
Garmin Ltd., a leading maker of navigational devices, does double duty
as a Garmin GPS unit and a smart phone that runs Google Inc.'s Android
operating software. Born out of a partnership with Taiwan-based Asustek
Computer Inc., the Garminfone is good at navigating as well as checking
e-mail and Web surfing.
Still, at $200 from T-Mobile after a
rebate and with two-year contract, the price is steep considering that
the device doesn't run one of the newest versions of Android —
software you can get on flashier phones for the same price. That means
you'd miss some features such as the ability to dictate e-mails and
instant messages.
From the Garminfone's bright, spacious
touch screen — 3.5 inches diagonally — to its navigation-centric
home screen, it's clear that the Garminfone wants to help you get
around.
It comes with a car charger and dashboard
mount to make it even easier to find your way; that's a plus compared
with other phones running Android's free Navigation software. It also
offers a slew of options for customizing voices and finding your way
that are not found in Navigation. And like the Android version, Garmin's
navigation service is free once you buy the phone.
The phone sports Garmin's Breeze user
interface, which presents three big touch-screen "buttons"
that let you make phone calls, get directions or check out a map.
You can slide your finger from right to
left to see all the different applications on the phone. If you hold
your finger down on the little home icon below the screen, you'll be
able to flip through an additional five "screens" on which you
can place application widgets for Facebook, your calendar and more.
That's similar to the multiple home-screen layout on other Android
phones.
I tested the phone's mapping skills on a
camping trip with friends to Eldorado National Forest, a three-hour
drive heading east from San Francisco.
I didn't spend time playing around with
the Garminfone's voice settings, so we got the default navigation voice:
a British man we soon began referring to as Geoffrey.
Geoffrey had no problem getting us to our
campsite, though he failed to mention that the last few miles would be
over a dirt road. He wasn't that helpful when my friends wanted to find
a nearby bar at 10 p.m. (not his fault, since apparently there weren't
many bars within 10 miles of our tent).
But the phone proved essential the next
day when we wanted a list of all the In-N-Out Burger restaurants on the
way home, and it did a good job of calculating our arrival time when we
got slowed down by traffic.
On the way home from camping, Geoffrey's
tone seemed to grate on everyone in the car, but I didn't have the
patience to play around with the phone and figure out how to change it
to a more soothing voice. Like mine, perhaps.
As it turns out, the Garminfone will let
you do this through an included application called the Garmin Voice
Studio. With this program, it took me about 10 minutes in a quiet room
to record all 65 required words and phrases to my satisfaction.
It was a little creepy to hear me direct
myself around town, and you'll need to keep an eye at the phone's screen
if you use a customized voice since it doesn't incorporate street names.
Still, it is a nifty option.
Once you get where you're going, you may
want to take some pictures. But don't count on the Garminfone's simple
3-megapixel camera replacing your dedicated point-and-shoot. The
resolution is not as good as what you can get on many other smart
phones. Although photos I took in bright daylight looked fine, they were
not so sharp when viewed at full size. And there's no flash, just a
series of lighting settings that you can use to try to adjust up your
shots.
The Garminfone probably won't replace
your iPod, either. Sure, you can use it to play music or stream tunes
from online radio service Pandora, but unlike most other current smart
phones, it doesn't have a standard headphone jack. Instead, it comes
with an adaptor for the charging port on its bottom that will also turn
headphones into a handsfree adaptor. For me, this is just one more cable
I'm likely to lose track of.
That's not to say that the Garminfone is
a one-trick pony: It was surprisingly good at playing videos and quickly
loaded most of the Web pages I wanted to see. Text and images look crisp
on the large screen, and phone calls sounded fine. The phone comes with
4 gigabytes of storage, plus a 2-gigabyte microSD memory card.
Still, it seems kind of frumpy compared
with other Android phones on the market that cost the same, such as the
stylish and feature-bedecked Droid Incredible, which is sold by Verizon
Wireless.
And because the Garminfone runs the older
Android 1.6 — a decision T-Mobile attributed to the stability of that
software — you won't be able to take advantage of some of the latest
Android features or download some applications that require a more
recent operating software.
Hankering for a Garmin GPS unit that can
also make calls and check e-mails? Then the Garminfone could be the one.
If you care about substance and style, though, you may want to navigate
toward another Android smart phone.
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