By File this one under “expected”: the Garminfone sold through T-Mobile hasn’t got off to the hottest start since its launch back in June, with analyst Yair Reiner estimating only about 20,000 units have moved off the shelves. Reiner, who works with Morgan Keegan, surveyed 50 T-Mobile stores and came to the conclusion that most sold no more than five Garminfone handsets. Considering it’s “legacy” version of Android 1.6, niche market for a full-blown navigation phone, and other Android phones offered through T-Mobile that already ship with Google Maps and Navigation anyway, this one shouldn’t come as too much of a shocker.
Reiner points out that many stores didn’t devote display space to the Garminfone initially, which no doubt had an adverse effect on sales. Couple that with poor marketing and you have all the ingredients for one flop of a phone. Will the poor start for Garmin’s Android endeavours cause them to reconsider their options in the future when it comes to combo GPS device/smartphone devices?
[via Cellular-News]
EPIC FAIL!!
if it had a 4.3″ screen and froyo it would be the ultimate nav system for your car but…no.
No one, not even garmin should be surprised. With google maps (though its often wrong) already on all android phones, there is no need for this. Wonder if they can navigate their way outta this phone hole.
t-mobile is a horrible company anyways all was well til my mt3g messed up 3 times and i call to get a exchange to a new phone they tell me htc says i can only have the cliq xt i told them i considered it a slap in the face and i am deffinitly waiting to see if the htc vision is coming to t-mobile
No Shit
I travel a lot in areas without good Internet access, so I liked the Windows Mobile version of the Garmin software with its maps on a card, but I didn’t like it well enough to buy an inferior phone.
Duh, lets build a phone with an os that has navigation and add navigation??? Really?i saw that fail coming when they told us we woud be selling it. I need to be the guy that decides wich phones we carry at t mobile cause they are not doing a very good job.maybe they should run ideas by the reps at stores that have a high smart phone mix and they never would have carried that $400 paper weight
mt3g, that sounds like bullshit, especially considering that the cliq xt is from a different manufacturer, so why in the world would htc tell you that?
They should stick to what they know GPS. Not every company can make a phone. They need to gather their losses and go back to making in-car units. If the phone didn’t have Android it would have sold no units.
@phoenix Exactly. “Oh, your HTC phone failed? Please get a Motorola to replace our product.”
no surprise its a crappy product and way over priced plus looks wise its ugly as sin
“no surprise its a crappy product and way over priced plus looks wise its ugly as sin”
Exactly. Not to mention, T-Mobile sucks as well. I had nothing but hell with them when I got my G1, and their phones are generally ugly as hell. Not to mention the wild goose chase they sent me on when I actually did try to cancel… making it take 3 days of calling just to cancel their stupid service.
This just in: Water is wet!
News @ 11
mt3g If your phone has been exchanged three times in 90 days then T-mobile takes over the exchange. That is how I got a Cliq for my Behold 2. Its a “no lemon” policy.
When Garmin released the NuviPhone two years ago it was a resounding success, unlike anything else on the market and…oh, yeah. That didn’t quite happen, did it? This is an example of “too stubborn to quit.”
I would expect it to be slow. this phone was/is a STUPID idea. Any phone that has GPS and access to Google or bing maps is superior to this!
This is actually a really great phone…… for stupid people to get.
I’m not surprised. Garmin/Asus should have paid for advertisements themselves. There’s no excuse why Asus a company with plenty of money should just wait for tmobile to advertise for them.
I’m going to disagree with other posters though that this being 1.6 is what killed it. I think lack of advertising did it. I don’t think the device has anything wrong with it that your average buyer would notice. Remember the idiots out there, your average phone buyer doesn’t know, or care about which version of Android it’s running.
I just upgraded from a G1 to a Cliq XT in April thinking 2.1 was going to come out any day. The only real issue I have with the XT is a rollback to 1.5(which hopefully is fixed very soon). 1.6 has the ability to use the Gesture Search app which really makes it easy to find contacts, and Google Nav was handy. So those two apps are all I miss software wise, I don’t notice any real difference in the OS between 1.5 and 1.6. I also think it would have been nice to have a larger screen. The Garminfone would have given me all I’m asking for. Larger screen, Gesture Search, and Nav. One thing I think is awesome about the Garminfone is it comes with it’s own windshield mount and car charger as well as GPS will work even without cell reception which pissed me off with my G1.
So I disagree that 1.6 is what killed it, a lack of your average buyer even knowing it exists is what killed it. However to your tech junkie we see that any handset that fails to get 2.1 means they will have a severe limitation on apps from the store being so many apps are designed for 2.1+. In the end though, i’ll be happy with my XT once I get 2.1 but that’s cus I’m a tech junkie that I know I NEED 2.1 to have access to the most apps. But I’m keeping my eye out on ebay to see if I can get a Garminfone for a steal so I can have one to play/travel with. Then again I’m still holding my breath for a Motoroi for Tmobile. Bigger screen!
Who could have seen this one coming huh ?
;-)
The Mall is Busier at Christmas, Says Analyst
Now if only my Google maps would save to SD so that when I lose signal I can actually find my way…
who would buy a phone just for the navigation systems? epic fucking fail!!! sometimes i wonder why i’m not rich.. because they had to do is make a phone with a 2ghz dual core processor,front facing camera,8mp cam, 1080p recording with hdmi out. a 3.9inch super amoled screen,32 gb internal storage, and 32 micro sdcard with 800 mb of ram. also a battery with a 72 hr standby!!! with only 250 on contract,600 dollars off. now who wouldn’t buy that bitch?
No shock here , Epic fail of a BORING way behind the curve phone from garmin !!
What about the Pharos 600e….
Had it for a few months and ditched. Small screen, slow, piss poor phone calls, piss poor speaker phone, etc.
Sold for a real phone made by a phone company, not a GPS company.
http://reviews.cnet.com/smartphones/pharos-gps-phone-600e/1805-6452_7-32363052.html
Wow what a shock! Well.. not really, no. This thing should have been burned! BURNED WITH FIRE!
For those who remember Gomer Pyle…”SURPRISE! SURPRISE! SURPRISE!”
You guys have covered it so I’ll just say
FAIL
Lol dude, everyone intelligent knew it would fail the day it was announced.
It failed for sooo many reasons. Largest of all, lack of advertising and the worst ui ever on a smartphone. If they would have used a much more vanilla version of android it would have been much more successful. I played w/ one for 15 minutes, and it was the most clostrophobic backwards interface ever. What idiot thought “hmm, I wish I could pick up my car gps unit with the worst ui ever and use it to do other things like surf the web”. It should have been done the other way around- an easy to use android smartphone w/ exeptional nav features and pre-installed maps. They should’ve just worked on gps software that could be purchased and installed on any android device. Or maybe a nav version of the liquid.
Worst Idea Ever.
I saw a commercial for this and laughed, watched it again and explained it to my tech-dumb fiance and she even laughed at the idea.
It’s not a horrible phone & especially sufficient for those who don’t “need” all the extra features that mightier 2.1 type phones provide. Even so, I’d never buy a Garmin-i, too want more. Surprised that any manufacturer would produce a 1.6 phone, at this point.
@myt3g, TMO has nothing to do with your phone having issues. That’s all the manufacturer. Why stay & wait for the Vision if you’re soo unhappy now?
I got mine yesterday, it is an awesome GPS… I dont even have a tmo sim card in there.. I just use it as a gps.. I didn’t want to use my iphone 4 as a gps because the battery life on that sucks when you have 20 email accounts running.. the only thing i dont like is how sensitive the buttons are..
I just took this phone on a 6 day vacation to San Fran CA. I have to say, I never had to touch a map or even ask a question to find out where to go, what to do, or how to get there. All the time, I was getting my email, chatting and making calls. I just used a few handy apps, and it checked my flight times, got me to and from the rental garage and airport, as well as all over Napa Valley and the redwood forest. I even located, bought tickets to a BBall game, and picked them up at the gate, w/o messing online, and all done from the car. I could make a few suggestions for this device, like going back to the old release button on the Garmin G60, or providing mount with an additional hinge like the G60, but the unit overall does 97% of what I wanted. If this marriage of Garmin Asus sticks, I will Absolutely get the next version when it comes out.
The phone’s not even out for a month, and you guys are calling it a failure. I knew the Internet was full of idiots, but you’ve exceeded expectations.
This is the third Garmin I’ve gotten. Good stuff, durable and usable. Love the big screen, that’s really why I bought it, but the GPS stuff has won my heart.
Please so explain to me how Google’s Navigation or any other Navigation is better than this phone. You do not have to have coverage to use the maps. I own a Garminfone and this phone is great. I had a mytocuh and a g1 and they both sucked!!!!! Can you say Taskkiller for slow running apps with mytouch and death screen with G1. Mytouch would crash several times running multiple apps. My Garminphone, I was running a route with the GPS, talking on the phone and missing turns on purpose to see how well the unit performed and I have to say I was more than pleased. I just don’t get it, how can you talk about a phone you don’t have? Most of you guys in this post probably can’t even afford one but yet do nothing but bad mouth the device. Btw, 2.1 for Garminfone is coming soon.
Phil i’m 100% with you. I own an A50 and its been absolutely brilliant. Other phones i have used, including the iphone, just don’t come close to the garmin devices. I suggest ppl try it before making comment.
Who ever calls this phone dumb is pretty much dumb and does not own this phone! This is a great phone. I love every thing about this phone!
I purchased the Garminfone last month, mainly because they have a special going on. It was fairly inexpensive, probably because of the lack of sales the past couple of months.
So far I’ve been satisfied. The GPS works great, I’ve used it a couple of times and I have no complaints. I’ve edited some mp3 files and created my own ringtones, alarms, and notification sounds.
The only apps I use is pretty much the face book app, and a fantasy football app. The web browsing on certain sites could use some work, but thats about it.
I don’t know why people are badmouthing t-mobile. I have been with them for 8 years, and they have been more the supportful due to the issues with upgrading, and troubleshooting the Garminfone. I really liie it. The only problem I have with it, is no flash on the camera, and when you upgrade to Android 2. whatever, it added apps I will never use, and you can’t get rid of. This is the first smartphone I ever had the chance of owning, and it is a great phone for beginners, like myself. It does freeze up time to time, but with any phone, using any OS like windows, and or android, you will have some problems. I have never heard in my life of a phone with no problems. To those bastards out there who complain about a phone not being perfect, BUILD YOUR OWN. It takes years of development to make these phones, and if you have the time and money to piss away on designing, and building yor own perfect phone, then do it! Stop complaining, and do it your self.
On another note, I know people with AT@T, Sprint, Boost, Verizon phone services, and t-mobile is the cheapest for what you get. So if you dont care about customer service, go to another provider. I have never had a problem with t-mobile, other then the fact they use to have 24 hour service, when you called, now they dont. So if this is the worst of it, I will stay with t-mobile, and hopefully Garmin comes out with a new Garminfone, I would definately buy it. Also what a lot of people dont realize is when you use GPS on a phone, it uses your 3 or 4G network, which uses up your set of megabytes quickly, well unless you can afford the unlimited package, I can’t, but a lot of people can. You dont use yor network at all for GPS for the Garminfone. I love that feature
This is a great phone, it now has an updated OS which improves it greatly, Maybe I dont need much more then it offers, but great GPS, GREAT PHONE for calling and texting and surfing the web, what is this missing that you all complain about? missing out ona good phone!