Garmin Neverfone?

11th May 2009

Garmin first announced the nüvifone G60 back in February 2008 and slated it for a Q3 2008 launch.. but it never arrived. Then, this February it was announced again, this time as the Garmin-Asus nüvifone G60.

We pointed out at the time that Garmin were not promising to have the G60 out in the first half of 2009, but that they were merely expecting to tell us when it might be available sometime during the first half of 2009.

According to TWICE, Garmin announced during their recent earnings conference call that the G60 would be delayed until the second half of 2009 and that COO Cliff Pemble said "Smartphones are complicated and bringing one to market that’s built totally from the ground up on a custom Linux platform is not an easy task".

So why build the G60 on Linux in the first place? Since the device was announced 15 months ago, a lot of things have changed. The Android platform looks ideal for this sort of development, or any number of readily available Windows devices. Perhaps it is time for Garmin to ditch the entire G60 project and start over.

The delays are especially puzzling because Engadget actually got their hands on a G60 back in February and things were looking hopeful. But our view is that the G60 will most likely be obsolete by the time it comes out.. if it ever does.

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