Garmin Asus partnership seems to be doing well in Taiwan since it just recently announced the nuvifone M10. It is a decent looking phone as you’d expect from Asus and the specs really show the two companies really tried hard with this device. nuvifone M10 runs on Windows Mobile 6.5.3, has a 3.5″ WVGA touchscreen with 800×480 resolution, microSD card, a processor running at 600Mhz, bluetooth, 5MP camera, 512MB memory, and a 1500mAh battery.

February 6th is the release date for Taiwan where they’ll have to spend about equivalent of $440.

The Garmin Nuvi 1860 we mentioned back in August might be coming out in the U.K pretty soon, and we get a chance to see what it may look like once it finally comes out in the U.S. of A. Nuvi 1860 is a special kind of GPS navigation system for it features WiFi, a web browser, and even a camera that can take geotagged pictures. Some features we’ve seen before here and there, but not from Garmin.

Garmin Nuvi 1860 will run some sort of Linux OS in the background and will have a 4.8″ screen, and bluetooth support. Also with your purchase you’ll get a free 1yr subscription to their nuLink services which cover Google local search, traffic, gas prices, Ciao!, weather, movie times, local events, Send to GPS, flight status, converter, White Pages, and myGarmin.

How much? £499.00 says this site. That’s about $800, which sounds right, knowing Garmin.

Garmin just announced a subscription based service called Garmin BirdsEye which lets users load highly detailed photo maps to their handheld GPS navigation devices. Currently the compatible devices include Garmin Oregon, Garmin Dakota, and Garmin Colorado and the annual subscription costs $30 which gets you unlimited access.

Here are some specs about the BirdsEye service:

• aeriel photo based maps
• 0.5 meter per pixel resolution
• zoom capability ranges from 12 miles to 20 feet
• can be overlayed over vector maps
• data provider is DigitalGlobe

Garmin just announced today an app for iPhone and iPod Touch called Pilot My-Cast. This is a premium aviation weather, flight planning and flight filing application that will work in USA and Canada.

How it works is that you input your route, and then Pilot My-Cast overlays the flight path with the weather. The interface has options to give you quick access to routes, flight plan, weather, airport information and other settings.

Here is what you can do in more detail:

• Routes: Create a route to any airport, fix or VOR in the United States or Canada.
• Flight Plan: Create and file a flight plan and send to DUAT(s) providers.
• Weather: Weather information including NEXRAD Radar, METARs and TAFs, lightning data, SIGMETs, AIRMETs, PIREPs, NOTAMs, winds aloft and more.
• Airport Information: Access the AOPA Airport Directory

Is it worth the $10/month or $100/year cost? Well you’ll be getting your data from the up to the minute providers such National Weather Service, Environment Canada, and Federal Aviation Administration; so you decide. I guess you can always get there with your browser but it wouldn’t overlay your flight path with the latest weather maps… [press release]

It looks like Garmin is ready for Valentine’s Day in Europe. They just made available a new GPS navigation system for Western Europe. It goes by the nick name City Chic, but the actual product name is Garmin Nuvi 1245.

It has a stylish slim (25% thinner than other nuvi’s) red body, and also a really classy red leather case that could add some color to any women’s purse. With a name like City Chic Garmin must really be going after female customers.

As far as navigating through streets this nuvi 1245 is just like most other nuvi’s. It’s got text-to-speech, lane guidance, and even ecoRoute feature. The real difference is the pedestrian navigation option that comes with City Chic. What’s not cool is that the cityXplorer maps still cost $10 per city. What do you get once you get a city map? Well it pretty much lets you get around town and helps you out with public transit such as where to catch the bus, find the nearest subway or light rail station, estimated arrival times, and more.

Some other features include map of 22 European countries, over 2 million points of interests, preloaded speed limits, and a special interests POI database with over 10,000 itmes including things like shopping, nightlife and living well, fashion, decor, DIY, wine merchants and even organic supermarkets… [pdf]

You remember Garmin Dakota 20 right? Considering buying one? Well, we have a review for you.

It looks like Garmin Dakota 20 survived crash tests, was usable with wet and muddy gloves, and great for navigation.

Setting up routes for recording seemed like a bit of a bigger challenge but still manageable.

The bottom line is:

If you need a GPS unit that can master maps, deliver data, record your ride and fitness data, and direct you to your post-ride pasta when it’s all over, this is a good do-it-all option.

Mind you the review was done for bikers but most of this should still apply.

There’s the Garmin GPSMAP 5012, the portable and dual function GPSMAP 640, and the brand new GPSMAP 6000 and GPSMAP 7000 series. But maybe you need something else – not so expensive – but still more functional than the portable GPSMAP 640. In that case you’ll find the Garmin GPSMAP 4208 quite useful. Garmin GPSMAP 4208 is a WAAS enabled chartplotter with 12 channel GPS receiver and a 8.4″ VGA display. More of this gadget »

Garmin just introduced a free service called Custom Maps that lets Garmin Oregon, Garmin Dakota, and Garmin Colorado users upload their digital or even paper maps into their device.

You’ll have to update the software on your PC and on the Garmin handheld devices we just mentioned, save the map in JPG format, create an image overlay, link the JPG file, adjust the boundaries, then send to your device – all of which are explained here in detail with images.

We’ve talked about Garmin’s GPSmap series here on Navigadget but just today they came out with a bunch of new models including this one pictured above – the GPSmap 7215.

Their new series of chartplotters are the GPSmap 6000 and GPSmap 7000 which include the new Garmin G Motion technology that promises to smooth map panning, and zooming with super fast updates. Unlike most other devices out there when it comes to marine GPS devices it is sometimes really important to have a really really dim backlight – and all the new models in these series boast a display that can dim down to 0.5 nits. More of this gadget »

 

Pioneer’s GPS products don’t make huge waves in the Stateside navigation market, but it’s actually got some fairly broad patents on route guidance and mapping, and apparently Garmin’s infringing them. That’s at least the story Pioneer’s telling to the US International Trade Commission, where it’s filed a complaint against Garmin and asked for a ban on sales of GPS products that infringe the patents. Obviously that would shake things up in a big way, but we clearly don’t have the whole story here — Pioneer and Garmin have apparently been negotiating for some time, and the two companies are currently fighting it out in the German court system as well. We’ll see how this one shakes out — stay tuned.