Garmin continues to drive their own convergence of portable devices, with its
nav-enabled smartphones and
WiFi-equipped portable navigators moving closer to one another. The GPS giant recently announced it would offer an
Android-based Garminfone through T-Mobile. And there is the Nuvi 3700 PND coming this summer that appears to draw direct inspiration from the Apple iPhone. Now, Garmin has announced the slender Nuvi 295W, a WiFi navigator with a 3-megapixel digital camera.
Think of this as the Garmin take on adding an
Apple iTouch-inspired twist to its Garminfone. The Nuvi 295W looks like a smartphone, with a slim .6-inch form factor and wide screen. It can use WiFi to surf the Internet, and therefore allow the user to check email, view documents, research points of interest, and find locations using Google Local Search. It enables one-touch navigation from your address book, as well as search results. Google Local Search and weather are choices built-into in the menu.
The camera allows you to shoot photos, and then send them to a friend, upload them to a Web page, and geotag them for routing. As with many Garmin devices in recent years, there is a picture viewer and music player included. You can also download geotagged images from
Garmin Connect Photos and navigate to them.
True to the Apple analogies, the Nuvi 295W changes the display from landscape to portrait based on orientation. This can be helpful to switch from in-car to on-foot navigation. Garmin claims the rectangular screen measures 3.55-inches diagonally, making it smaller than some smartphones and increasingly popular widescreen navigators.
The Nuvi 295W includes maps for the United State and Canada, with 6 million points of interest. It has spoken street names for specific turn-by-turn directions, but the Nuvi 295W lacks many desirable features found on other Garmin navigators, such as lane assist, reality view, real-time traffic information, and Bluetooth connectivity. We wouldn't be surprised to see such features in further iterations.
The Nuvi 295W is now available, with a retail price of $280.
—Jeff Bartlett
