Mediocrity, thy name is Nuvifone

It's amazing how quickly the market for bundled GPS applications has exploded, as my colleague Jeff Bartlett notes on the Consumer Reports Cars Blog. If the Garmin Nuvifone had been released when it was first announced two years ago, it would have been a mobile marvel. A full GPS unit and a phone? Inspired! Unfortunately for Garmin, similarly inspired apps for phones such as the iPhone, Blackberry, and Android came out while it put the finishing touches on the Nuvifone, which is now making an unfashionably late arrival to its own party.

Taken piecemeal, we so far found nothing terribly wrong with the device's functionality. Our tests of the Nuvifone found it performs commendably as a GPS, on par with standalone units and very similar to the Garmin 265T. It boasts a number of features: spoken street names, a trip computer, pedestrian mode, a higher-end mount, and a "Where am I" emergency option. Premium features such as real-time traffic, gas prices, and weather are available for $5.99 a month. (For the full Nuvifone review from a GPS perspective, see "Garmin Nuvifone G60: First Look.")

On the other side of the Nuvi-coin, there seems to be nothing particularly wrong with its phone. Early tests show it to have very capable phone performance, though it lacks some features common on most phones such as voice command and multimedia messaging. It also runs only on the AT&T network, which has a less-than-stellar rank in our Ratings of wireless carriers (available to subscribers).

And therein lies the Nuvifone's flaw—it's just not robust enough as a dual-purpose device to compete with a now saturated smart-phone/GPS market. Its price—$400 (or $300 with rebate)—is another disincentive. Sure, it may do a better job than many of the current iPhone navigation apps out there (many of which we've reviewed), but it also lacks the diverse multimedia capabilities of the iPhone, plus the aforementioned basic features that plenty of simple cell phones have offered for a while.

Bartlett lists the features he believes the next generation Nuvifone (if there is one) should have. Engadget suspects it might be on sale by December. Gizmodo baldly states it "should have been euthanized" before it hit store shelves.

In the end, price might be the deal-breaker. If personal navigation is paramount, you can do better within Garmin's own family. The Garmin 265T that the Nuvifone so closely resembles costs around $200 and includes free traffic services.

It's a shame Garmin was so late out of the starting gate. An exciting, original idea two years ago is now and underwhelming and expensive option compared to the competition. —Nick K. Mandle