Garmin Asus Nuvifone M10

Full Review

The Garmin Asus Nuvifone M10 smartphone is a different beast from other smartphones. It is the one of the very few smartphones in the market that has GPS as its primary feature. While most smartphones today have GPS as a feature, the Nuvifone puts that feature front and centre and makes it very easy to access the GPS. But does it do enough to qualify as a good phone?

Features

The M10 runs on Windows Mobile 6.5 Professional and uses a 600MHz Qualcomm processor. It has 4GB of internal memory and a microSD card slot that can accept cards up to 32GB. Apart from GPS, it also supports Wi-Fi and 3G and has a 5MP camera but with no flash. It also has a bunch of productivity features including Microsoft Exchange support and Office Mobile that lets you read, edit and create documents from the phone. The phone also lets you access Windows Marketplace for downloading apps for your Windows Mobile. Accessing Marketplace is simple, easy and free and all you need is a Windows Live account. However, the number of useful, free apps currently populating the store is on the lower side.

The M10 gave us the best GPS performance that we have seen from a smartphone.

Design & Usability

Garmin Asus haven’t done too much to change the default interface of the phone. It still looks like a Windows Mobile phone, but there have been subtle changes made. For e.g. there is a great big search button right on the homescreen that not only lets you search the phone for contacts or messages, but also the Internet or your favorite GPS locations, Points of Interest, routes etc. Also, although the main menu is still immediately recognizable as WinMo, the phone’s interface has tweaked to better work with finger touch. As a result, instead of scrolling through menus, you can swipe your finger across to access different menus. Buttons have also been made larger so that they are easier to push. The interface itself is quite smooth and fluid although the touchscreen does lack some responsiveness and accuracy. Typing on the virtual keyboard is fine but could have been better.

Looks-wise the M10 belongs in the classy and elegant category. The build quality is solid and overall the phone looks and feels very good. The M10 has a 3.5 inch screen with an impressive resolution of 480x800 but the color output is restricted to 65K. The display looks a little dull and doesn’t hold that well under direct sunlight.

GPS Performance

Garmin’s position as one of the premier GPS device makers is justified by the phone. The phone has a full-featured GPS tool and uses the very good Navteq maps (the same maps that Nokia phones use).

The phone impressed me with the time it took to latch on to a GPS signal. In fact, it was quiet easily the best smartphone I have seen in terms of reception strength and there was no noticeable signal loss even when passing through tunnels, under railway bridges or places with plenty of trees and buildings. The phone also lets you search for a destination point either by searching directly for the address or browsing through lists of Points of Interests (such as hotels, hospitals and even petrol pumps).

The route suggestions were very accurate for Bangalore although the lists of alternate routes and POIs weren’t as comprehensive as we’ve seen on dedicated GPS devices such as the MapmyIndia Zx150 or the SatGuide Moov 200. We missed features such as route record and pinpointing a location directly on the map instead of being forced to use the search feature all the time.

Overall though, the M10 gave us the best GPS performance that we have seen from a smartphone.

Browsing, Multimedia & Others

Browsing using the default Internet Explorer on the phone was decent. The browser still lacks features such tab support and its interface looked unpolished. Rendering was fine and IE managed to play Flash content well.

The M10’s 5MP camera isn’t very good. Pictures looked dull with very low brightness. The camera also has no autofocus or manual focus and the video recording was also average. The music playback is better but the volume levels are way too low and therefore the audio lacks punch. On the other hand, the external speaker is quite loud and clear but the bundled headphones are pretty bad.

A picture taken outdoors and a close-up picture taken indoors (click the images to enlarge)

Video playback isn’t very good either. The phone didn’t come with software to encode videos and most of the WMV videos I transferred displayed choppiness on screen.

The M10 has a very good battery and it lasted just about 8 hours in our talktime test. It also has quite good call quality and voices came across crisp and clear albeit a little soft.

Bottom Line

At Rs. 19,990, the Garmin Asus Nuvifone M10 skirts the Rs. 20K mark. If you are in the unlikely situation of wanting a smartphone specifically for GPS, then it’s a great buy. However, if GPS is your most important requirement, then dedicated GPS devices such as the SatGuide Moov 200 and the Garmin nuvi 215 would be better deals since they cost at least Rs. 8K lesser. If you are looking for a WinMo mobile at that price-range or cheaper, then the LG GM730 at Rs. 19,500 is a better option.

With inputs by Laldinfela Pachuau