A lot of people will have reasonable doubts whether a Garmin-Asus smartphone will make the cut and rightly so. Garmin and Asus are strong in their respective domains but are they good mobile phone designers? Garmin-Asus has always differentiated their products by presenting phones with strong navigating functions. It is a concept that caters to a niche market and is valued by some consumers. But obviously the previous models from Garmin-ASUS haven’t exactly created a huge buzz or created strong sales figures.
The key to a successful mobile device is always two-fold; the hardware and the software.
It is not easy to create brilliant hardware of trendy and likable looks. But manufacturers are consistently getting better. Just look at Nokia with N8, Motorola with their Droid variations or Samsung with their Galaxy S. The looks of the Garmin Asus A10 are reasonably well designed and definitely what you expect from a smartphone released in 2010. Thus, in the looks department, you will not feel that the A10 lacks much.
Turning on the A10 is a somewhat refreshing experience. You'll be greeted with a newly skinned home screen provided by Garmin-Asus, with two of the three large central icons dedicated to mapping services. Touching "Where to?" or "View Map" takes you to the excellent Garmin mapping software where you can enter an address to be routed to, search for points of interest or just browse the map. The maps are also stored on the phone itself, so you needn't worry about downloading maps on the go. The last icon leads you to the Call function of the phone.
How well does the GPS unit works?
The Garmin-Asus A10 smartphone has a 3.2 inch TFT capacitive display. Though it possesses reasonable viewing angles and is relatively bright and clear, it is hard to see in direct sunlight and isn't as responsive to touch as some of its competitors. When mounted in the included car window cradle, users might experience a certain lack of responsiveness and sensitivity to touches which result in having to tap the screen two or three times to register a selection. The keyboard is also a little small when entering address information.
One neat feature we love about the A10 is when you pull the handset out of the dashboard mount at the end of a journey, the phone will automatically save the car's GPS location in the Android notifications panel on the home screen. The A10 can also navigate to an address directly from your contacts list or to a location from a geotagged photo.
Hardware Specs
Garmin-Asus A10 Main Specifications:
- Networks: HSDPA DL:7.2Mbps
- OS: Android 2.1 (Eclair) for SG/TW releases and Android 1.6 for AU release.
- CPU: Qualcomm 7227 600MHz
- Memory: 512 MB SDRAM + 512MB ROM, 4GB eMMC Flash
- Connectivity: Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, USB v2.0, WLAN 802.11b+g
- GPS: Qualcomm GPSOne–Gen7 (AGPS supported)
- Display: 3.2 HVGA TFT with capacitive touch , 65Kcolors
- Camera: 5 megapixel, Auto Focus
- Battery: 1500mAh Lithium
- Expansion Slot: microSD (supports SDHC, up to 32GB)
- Weight(grams): 130
- Dimension (mm): 110 x 58 x 13.9
Will Android Make a Difference?
On the software side, by going with Android, Garmin-ASUS has at least caught the attention of the ever-increasing Android audience. More importantly, Android OS can balanced up Garmin-ASUS’ concept of “navigating phones”. One of the possible reasons for the lukewarm response to Garmin-ASUS’ past products seem to be bad user experience due to the OS (Windows Mobile 6.5). Android, with its true multitasking ability and its vast offerings of Apps on the Android Market will provide users with a more complete experience as expected from a smartphone.
Here are some additional features of the Garmin-ASUS A10 which are more unique to the handset:
- Powered by NAVTEQ map data, pedestrian navigation on A10 provides accurate turn-by-turn, step-by-step directions when walking or using public transit.
- Other NAVTEQ map content on the A10 includes speed limit information to enable warnings of potential speed violations while providing information about maximum speed on a road.
- The A10 is also preinstalled with the equivalent capabilities of Garmin 1460 PND worth S$499.
- A10 features Google Maps™ with Street View which enables users to take a detailed look at their destinations before embarking on navigation with just one click.
- A large built-in point of interest (POI) database in the A10 provides real-time information on weather, movie showtimes, restaurant guides and public transportation such as bus and SMRT services.
Main Issues
The A10 often feels sluggish, especially when performing basic tasks such as opening and closing applications. While it might be too much to expect from a phone with specs that are not exactly high end, it's still mildly disappointing that the user experience cannot be a bit smoother. A 1Ghz instead of a 600Mhz processor might have gone to some lengths in providing a snappier feeling.
Though the implementation of Android is mostly a good business decision, Garmin-Asus has tried to squeeze Android's widget menu in underneath its own thin layer and the end results are somewhat confusing. If you hold the "home" key down, you'll see the task switcher and default Android widgets menu as an overlay. Not only does this feel completely redundant, but it often confuses the system when you press home, bringing up either screen almost at random. This might even make the unit unresponsive while it figured out which screen to display.
Conclusion
If you buy the A10 and perceive the gadget as a GPS unit that makes phone calls, you could have an easier time reconciling some of the issues that the A10 have with its sluggish apps performance. The GPS side of the phone works reasonably well although the screen size could be bigger and the keyboard more responsive. All in all, the underlying concept behind the phone is good. Unfortunately, the user experience left much to be desired.
