My 1st Experience With nüvifone M20
So I was given this Garmin-Asus M20 to do a review. I am kind of excited because this will be the 1st time I’ve ever use the Garmin application. All along, I use a map (Google map, Street Directory, etc) to find my way to places that I am not familiar with, and I navigate myself. By the way, M20 is a not just a GPS, but a smart phone with a fully integrated GPS system. So, it can basically do all the stuffs that a smart phone can do, such as making calls, sending SMS/MMS, taking photos, working as a organizer, web surfing, etc. Of cause, the focus is on its GPS system.
It happened that, I needed to visit a rather famous TCM physician, for my ankle. I sprained my ankle more than 1 month ago. It recovered after 2 visits to a Chinese physician nearby my home but I somehow still feel slightly painful when I bend my leg/ankle at a particular angle. So a friend suggested me to pay this Chinese physician a visit at Cambridge Road. I searched high and low on Internet. There was no direct bus going to there. I had to take a bus from Novena and alighted 3 stops later at Owen Road (where the hell is this Owen Road? I only know Michael Owen and Owen Hargraves are both playing for Manchester United, but Owen Road? =.=). From Owen Road, it took another 10 minutes walk to reach her clinic. This is where the problem is. But since I had the M20 with me, this was a good chance to test the GPS function.
While I was waiting for bus at Novena, I started the GPS function. This is rather simple, or should I say, idiot proof. Just go to “Search”, then key in the road name, block number or postal code. When the system finds the address, press on “Go”, and the phone will start communicating with the satellite, locate current location and plan a route to reach the intended location. My experience there was that, it took less than a minute to connect to satellite, and locate my location. And soon after that, a route had been calculated. I had changed the Route Setting to “Pedestrian” mode, so the calculated route was actually for pedestrian. It was actually the same route as the bus that I took. After I alighted the bus, I just followed the direction indicated on screen. In just a while, I reached the clinic!
Trying to navigate my way home.
This is what I saw after pressing “Search”. As you can see, there are many options given, such as points of interests, local search, etc. Or I can just select “Home” to find the way back home. Select “Addresses” to find the route to a specific location.
I think it is a good gadget to have for people who are always on the move. I also don’t mind bringing it together if I am driving to Malaysia for business trip, or just free and easy travel. This model is especially convenient for people who like backpack or free and easy tour because of the compact size and the fact that it can be used as a phone. As long as it is loaded with the map of the country, it is ready to go (Singapore version is preloaded with Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei map). It comes with an extra battery and car mount kit as well.
I haven’t had much time to test out other functions in this M20, just mainly focus on the GPS function at the moment. I shall share more once I manage to find out more on other functions. By the way, I was told that there will be a very interesting activity on 19th Dec as part of the promotion of Garmin-Asus smart phones. Something similar to treasure hunt, but with much more fun and lots of fantastic prizes to be won.
Hi, is the phone running on Window Mobile 6.5 already?
[...] was talking about the interesting event on 19th Dec, Sat in my previous post on my experience with M20 from Garmin-Asus. I have more details [...]
I have now owned my nuvi 780 for about 2 months and love it. Previously I owned a Garmin StreetPilot C580 which was a nice basic GPS, but I like the many features on the nuvi 780 better. I recently sold my C580 to a friend for most of what I paid for it at the time I purchased it nine months ago. Nine months ago, the c580 was a discontinued (and discounted) model and the nuvi 780 was Garmin’s top model selling for hundreds more. Today the nuvi 780 is also discontinued, and selling for less than $50 more than I paid for my C580. The nuvi 780 has almost too many features which I like to try to cover in a short review. It seems like every day I learn somthing new about the 780 that I like. Just today I “discovered” the “trip information” feature. This allows you to view a LARGE speedometer and a compass plus things like average speed, time while moving, time stopped, max speed, etc. since the last time the trip info was reset. This info is available at any time, whether your navigating to a destination or just looking at the GPS map. I also like and make frequent use of the Transmitter feature, which I find far more useful than you may gather from other revues. This allows getting driving directions over the FM radio instead of the GPS speaker. You have to find a “dead” spot on the FM radio and tune the nuvi 780 transmitter to the same frequency. I find that from day to day that the “dead spot” FM frequency may change, but I always seem to be able to find a frequency on which the GPS transmitter will work. The one area where the C580 was superior was in audio volume. The C580 had two large speakers (the nuvi 780 has only one smaller speaker), and the C580 had a physical volume control in addition to the programmable volume control the 780 has. If I set the 780 proggrammable volume to 100%, it is still not as loud as the C580 at max volume, but it can be heard clearly even with the car radio playing. Also, using the nuvi 780 transmitter to broadcast GPS instructions over the FM radio speakers, the sound than beats the C580 for volume and clarity. I like the 4.3″ diagnol screen on the 780 which is 70% larger than the screen on my old C580. This makes pressing soft keys on the screen easier and allows seeing more of the surrounding terrain. I particularly like the cradle which the 780 attaches to. This allows installing or removing the GPS without removing or insrting any cables since all cables (power, GPS cable, etc.) connect to the cradle, not the GPS. Finally, the nuvi 780 seems a little solider design than the C580 was. With the C580, I occasionally (onece every 50 power ONs) found that with the GPS power plugged into the car cigaret lighter, when the car ignition was turned on, the GPS would not turn ON. To turn the GPS on, it was necessary to turn the car ignition off and then back on again. I’ve never seen this on the nuvi 780. I also like the fact that the 780 has a “walking” mode which the C580 did not have. On one occasion I was able to use the 780 to locate my car in a large parking lot. The 780 “where am I” feature allows quickly locating a police station or hospital near where you are, which would be very useful in an emergency. Overall I am very satisfied with the nuvi 780 and highly recommend it.