Don’t worry, we’re not venturing into self-help territory or selling holidays on the hippy trail. Although if you wanted to know the best direction to take on said trail, we might have some useful information for you. Especially when it comes to choosing a phone to take in your backpack.
Back in April, Hector reported on the launch of the Garmin ASUS M10 smartphone. It’s a Windows powered handset with GPS abilities just a cut above the norm, featuring powerful turn-by-turn navigation and a bunch of location based features like city maps, transit system overlays, “Click and Go” navigation and text-to-speech. If you’re thinking “but don’t most smartphones have GPS nowadays”, you’d be right, but few have it like the M10. It’s the equivalent of a high end car kit, but in your pocket.
Having successfully launched the M10 in the US, ASUS is now sending it off towards Europe and the rest of the world. It’s also launching its sibling, the A10.
The A10 has all the features of the M10, but is based on a customised version of Google’s Android operating system. That means you can access the massice and growing Android Marketplace of apps, to supplement the built-in GPS features. As far as getting around goes, you won’t find another phone with maps loaded into ROM memory, so they’re fast loading and you can navigate where there’s no data signal or you’re outside your tariff range. It’s also specifically tailored for use on foot, as well as in a vehicle.
The A10 has a 3.7inch HVGA multitouch screen and a 5MP camera around the back. The GPS is powered by a Qualcomm GPSOne G7 chip and the battery lasts for up to 600 hours on standby.
We’ll bring you more news of the A10 next week, when we get one to play around with.