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Two new, as-yet unannounced Garmin GPS units have just surfaced at the FCC. The Zumo 340 and Zumo 350 are meant for use on motorcycles, and their model numbers suggest they are mid-level offerings, though pricing can only be guessed at so far. The units are also a little different in shape than the current flat form factor of Nuvi devices.
Garmin on Wednesday took the covers off the 2012 lineup of its nuvi portable GPS navigation devices. Some sport either the new Guidance 2.0 or 3.0 navigation engines that are said to offer a faster interface and more features. The six lines were divvied up into three categories: Essential, Advanced and Prestige.
Those of us marking Christmas today have very likely received technology gifts as presents. We'd like to start a new tradition and ask: what technology did you get as presents this year? Let us know in the comments, and we'll provide a brief sample of our gifts after the story break.
Garmin has introduced a range of new portable navigation devices, including the 5-inch nüLink 1695 as well as the nüvi 2200 and nüvi 2300 ranges for budget-conscious drivers. The 1695 is an extra-large five-inch model centering on Garmin's nüLink service, which gives users access to Google Local Search and updated traffic, weather, fuel price, flight status and other information. Users can also buy optional services through the nüLink Store, such as weather forecasts that use Nexrad radar info and weather alerts.
Garmin issued a voluntary recall for about 1.25 million nüvi navigation devices on Wednesday. The request was due to the potential to catch fires, which is the result of the combination of a battery manufactured by a third party and a specific circuit board design. Nearly 800,000 of the affected units were sold in the US, and may include nüvi 200W, 250W, 260W and nüvi 700-series models.
Garmin when discussing its spring results late last evening acknowledged that its smartphone business was struggling. The company made just $27 million of total revenue worldwide from the Garminfone and A10. The results were "below our plan" at Garmin and had spurred the GPS company to talk to carriers about "appropriate positioning" of its phones.
As promised, TomTom has made Yoda's voice available for download for its compatible portable navigation devices. The speech pack is the third in a series of Star Wars character voices already on tap, joining C-3PO and Darth Vader. Han Solo's voice will be added in August.
A new navigation device from Garmin, the nuvi 1695, has gone through testing at FCC recently. Little technical details were revealed about the device, other than that it will be able to connect to GSM networks for live traffic updates, among other things. It also expected to have Bluetooth support, letting users hold hands-free phone conversations and likely stream music.
T-Mobile this afternoon locked in the launch details of the Garminfone. It should reach stores on June 9, a week later than some rumors had suggested. The Android mapping phone unveiled back in April will cost $200 when attached to a two-year contract and a $50 mail-in rebate.
Garmin has quietly introduced the nüvi 295W, a new navigation device featuring Wi-Fi connectivity. The overall form factor gives the 295W an appearance similar to a smartphone, while the feature set is similar to a nüvifone without the voice communication capabilities. The device even automatically reorients the 3.5-inch touchscreen for portrait or landscape use.
Garmin-ASUS today launched its third Android phone in less than a year. Unlike the driving-oriented Garminfone and its A50 sibling, the A10 puts its focus on walking directions and has custom GPS software tailored to on-foot GPS. A newer version of Android is also probable as the phone supports multi-touch in the web browser.
Garmin launched one of the largest nuvi updates in recent memory on Monday in the radically redesigned nuvi 3700 series. The design is much thinner than usual GPS units at 0.35 inches deep and may be the only one to use a capacitive multi-touch screen. Navigators can double-tap or pinch to zoom as well as make two-finger gestures to switch between 2D and 3D or rotate the map.
Garmin-ASUS today formally unveiled its two answers to the lackluster uptake of the original nuvifone. The nuvifone A50 is the partnership's first Android phone and combines both Garmin's nuvi-based GPS navigation with a more modern operating system than either the Linux-based G60 original or Windows Mobile devices. It supports newer Android features like multi-touch in the web browser and voice recognition for search.
Garmin UK will soon release a new navigation device, the 1490TV, that has a built-in DVB-T digital terrestrial TV tuner; a first for the category. The device will pick up free digital TV and radio content in 14 European countries, with users in the UK able to pick up 50 channels. The 5-inch touchscreen can otherwise display maps of all of Europe, and the device has a database of traffic camera locations as well as premium traffic updates in addition to the usual points of interest database.
Apple has been one of the top-selling gifts in any category for Christmas this year, according to Amazon's charts. The 8GB iPod touch and its 32GB sibling are not only the second and fourth most gifted items in Amazon's electronics section but (as of press time) in second and third place among the online retailer's bestsellers in any category. They remain eclipsed only by Amazon's own Kindle reader for the top spot in either area.
Garmin has recently quietly began offering its latest portable navigation device, the nuvi 1450. It uses the same 5-inch, 480x272 resolution touchscreen as the costlier 1490T. Unlike that device, however, there is no Bluetooth support or live traffic updates and consequently brings it down to a budget level.
Garmin on Thursday said it would soon begin shipping its latest portable navigator, the nüvi 1690. The device has a built-in wireless module that connects to Garmin's nüLink service which allows users to access Google local search as well as traffic, weather, fuel prices, movie listings, flight status and more information. They can also connect to Ciao!, Garmin's location-based social networking system. In the US, buyers will get two years of free nüLink access.
Garmin's plans to enter connected GPS units in earnest have been uncovered thanks to an FCC user manual filing (PDF) for its first receiver under the title. First shown only in testing, the nuvi 1690 will have a built-in cellular modem and will use an in-house service known as nuinfo that would let users find information through Google Local Search and receive temperature updates for their current area courtesy of the title bar. The data link will also be useful for live traffic updates and provide a means of searching for fuel prices and flight times.
Portable navigation device maker Garmin has recently publicly acknowledged the issue with its nuvi 7x5-series devices that causes them to shut down. Calling it a firmware error that causes some devices to perform an unprompted GPS software update and in some cases shut down, Garmin announced it is "working diligently on a solution." Users began reporting the shutdowns earlier this week, leading many to believe the error originates from a new firmware update.
Garmin today updated its nüvi GPS mapper line with a new, especially high-end model. The 1490T is one of the company's largest ever and has a 5-inch touchscreen that provides both more information about the road as well as a more comfortable view; with the extra display size, the back is also about a quarter thinner than most of Garmin's lineup. As a flagship, it also gets much of the better features, including the new pedestrian GPS for walking, free lifetime traffic updates and multi-route prediction with lane guidance.
Garmin at CeBIT today broke new ground for itself with two new nuvi navigators. The nuvi 1200 and 1300 are the first devices from Garmin to explicitly support pedestrian GPS mapping in urban areas; adding a CityXplorer map pack provides not only walking directions across parks and other areas off-limits in road-only maps but will also plot routes based on buses, subways and other public transit. To help, the devices themselves are also significantly slimmer than Garmin's exclusively automotive devices.
Mobile partnership Garmin-ASUS on Thursday staked its claim at Mobile World Congress with the nuvifone M20, the second phone in the fledgling GPS navigator phone line. Unlike the G60, the M20 is based on Windows Mobile 6.1 and uses a heavily customized interface to provide turn-by-turn voiced navigation like stand-alone nuvi GPS units. It also uses the positioning for social networking through Ciao! and geotagging photos from the 3-megapixel camera.
Garmin chose Wednesday to reveal its full slate for CES and led off with a new top-end model for its nuvi GPS units. The 4.3-inch widescreen navigator updates the 880 with a lane assist mode that also includes a junction view: drivers are not only told which lane to use for the next change but also shown the layout to properly follow through the next exit or intersection. It further brings an upgraded set of MSN Direct data services and now lets owners check their airport flight status as well as more detailed weather with Doppler maps, better movie listings, local events and the option of sending maps and routes from a computer.
Garmin today revamped both the high- and low-ends of its nuvi GPS mappers with new features as standard that were previously just options. Competing with similar updates from NAVIGON, upgrades to both the 7x5 and 2x5 series now have traffic receivers as standard that provide alerts to road congestion and accidents for the lifetime of the device. Customers no longer need to pay a yearly subscription fee, the company is keen to note.
Garmin on Tuesday kicked off the launch of a new line of nuvi GPS units that are some of its first tailored to be used both for driving and for the outdoors. Both the US-only nuvi 500 and the North America-wide nuvi 550 have the same 3.5-inch design as many road-going nuvis and provide full street maps but also have a waterproofed touchscreen and topology maps for use either on hikes or on rivers. The interface has also been changed to add a quick toggle for the map type as well as a compass option.
Garmin today at CeBIT rolled out upgrades to several of its key Nuvi GPS units, including its lowest-cost devices yet to include smart features. The 3.5-inch 205 and 255 as well as their 4.3-inch widescreen 205W and 255W counterparts all now support Traffic Message Channel data for rerouting on congested roads and can optionally subscribe to MSN Direct for both traffic updates as well as fuel prices, news, and other short information that can be delivered to the Nuvi in real time. Both also use a satellite data cache technology known as HotFix to speed up position-finding, an elevation mapping mode that more clearly marks out hills, and a faster processor that improves routing speed.
Nuvio today announced that is has filed a trademark infringement suit against Garmin International in the U.S. District Court of Kansas. Nuvio claims that Garmin's recently announced Nuvifone infringes upon a prior Nuvio tradmark that the company uses on phones as well as its own telephony services. Nuvio attempted to reach a "mutually satisfactory resolution" with Garmin, but no resolution was reached. That led to Nuvio filing a legal complaint against Garmin to protect its rights.
Garmin recently unveiled its Colorado series of handheld GPS units, and the Forerunner 405 wrist-worn GPS device, as well as the super-sized Nuvi 5000 for use in large vehicles. The Colorado 400t uses a 3-inch color screen to display three-dimensional topographic maps, and is pre-loaded with a complete map covering the US. Tracks, waypoints, and geocaches can be wirelessly transferred with other units, and the device’s “Rock n Roller” thumbwheel makes the device easy to navigate. Garmin will show the new lineup at CES 2008, and although a release date was not mentioned, the Colorado 400 series devices sell for $600.
Garmin today unveiled three different Nuvi vehicle GPS systems, including one model that can use voice recognition to navigate the device’s interface. The 260W uses a sunlight-readable 4.3-inch wide touchscreen LCD to display information, and can speak street names. A trademark of the 260 series GPS units is the internal antenna that allows for a thinner design, while its rectangular shape is easy to mount in a vehicle. Garmin’s “Where To?” and “View Map” welcome screens are built-in to the device, providing users with the ability to search for a specific street address or establishment; destinations can also be located by category. Although pricing and availability information were not readily available, Garmin said that they will show the new units at CES 2008.
