Touchscreen titans: HTC Touch Diamond vs 3G iPhone vs Sony Ericsson Xperia X1 vs Garmin nuvifone

By Andrew Lim on 20 May 2008, 3:34pm

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Garmin nuvifone
Definitely one of the more unusual entries into the touchscreen market, the Garmin nuvifone is more of a sat-nav with a built-in phone -- as you would expect from a previously sat-nav-only company. We got a glimpse of this navigation-centric phone out at MWC and it's set to come out sometime this year.

Similar to the Diamond and Xperia, the nuvifone boasts GPS, Wi-Fi and HSDPA. It's rather chunky, but the screen is nice and large. The model we saw was only a prototype and the interface didn't work, so we can't comment on how good it is.

What we can say, though, is that the nuvifone lacks the styling of its competitors. We also noticed that on the prototype model there's only a 2.5mm headphone jack, so again you'll either need to use the provided headphones, buy an adaptor, or buy a pair of 2.5mm cans such as these from Sennheiser.

On the plus side, Garmin is famed for its sat-nav technology, which could bring a lot to the touchscreen table. Having a GPS receiver is one thing, but integrating the technology into a phone with a slick software interface isn't always easy. If you're looking for a straightforward GPS phone, this could very well be it.