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Garmin Asus Nüvifone M10

Satnav meets smartphone

Windows Mobile 6.5.3 has been tweaked a little with a skin provided by Garmin that offers 18 personalisable shortcuts over two screens, with three permanent shortcuts to the dialler, to a map view of your current location and to a search utility.

Garmin Nuvifone M10

Features HSDPA, Wi-Fi and a 5Mp snapper

The search utility opens up a screen with lots of options. The usual satnav favourites are here, such as searching for addresses and points of interests, going to favourites and recent places. You can find a contact and automatically search for their location, and there is also a Google Local Search option and Panoramio, which finds photos near to your current location. Handy if you are looking for something to do while on a trip.

Live traffic data can be downloaded and the Nüvifone M10 tells you whenever you are going online, so that you can decline to do so if you are worried about the cost. It can also pick up locations to go to from emails, the Web and SMS messages. It is a bit convoluted, as you need to make a selection, then choose ‘location search’ from the menu, wait while the M10 finds matches. You then choose from these to decide what you want to see on a map and make a destination – but it does work.

Locations can be sent to other people as an MMS with map, SMS with latitude and longitude and with a URL to a Google map, or using e-mail with a map or URL.

The 3.5in, 480 x 800 screen is resistive, which means no pinch to zoom. Running Windows Mobile 6.5.3 also means you some pretty small bits and pieces to prod at. So, in a very retro but quite welcome way, Garmin Asus provides a stylus to help with touchscreen accuracy.

Performance was surprisingly good. Voice instructions on the navigation side of things are loud – though dedicated satnav devices I’ve used tend to be louder.

Garmin Nuvifone M10
Next page: Verdict

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