Garmin Asus Nuvifone M10 review

Will fusing smartphones with sat navs make a compelling handset?

The definitive Garmin Asus Nuvifone M10 review
The definitive Garmin Asus Nuvifone M10 review

Why you can trust TechRadar We spend hours testing every product or service we review, so you can be sure you’re buying the best. Find out more about how we test.

The sat nav services are integrated very well indeed.

Garmin asus nuvifone m10 review

As already noted there are two shortcuts on the main menu – 'search' and 'view map'.

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

Hit search and you are right into a navigation-centric menu where you can look for towns, routes, contacts, points of interest, your own saved favourites, your home location and a few other interesting extras.

There's 'Panoramio' which goes online to find tagged photos near to your current location, for example, and Google Local search as well as a classic Points of Interest search tool which lets you step through categories.

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

These things immediately make the Garmin Asus Nüvifone M10 much more than just a point to point navigation device for drivers wanting to get from A to B.

It'll help you when you are out and about to find places of interest and things to do. Better yet, where there are phone numbers, you can even ring through to check on opening times or whatever.

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

Shame, then, that the navigation to these, often very local, venues is car only.

The Garmin Asus Nüvifone M10 had no trouble getting a satellite fix for us and it maintained a fix even when we were indoors as long as we stayed near a window.

This makes journey planning a real treat, because you can hunt around for nearby things to do and save routes for later, away from your vehicle.

You can download live traffic information over the air and every time you're about to go online the handset asks if you really want to do this, which is great if you're watching the data allowance.

Voice instructions are quite loud though, and we can't guarantee you'll always be able to hear them in a car full of chatting people!

Garmin asus nuvifone m10

Overall, the navigation system is really very good. As well as getting you from A to B and finding things to do along the way, we like the way the navigation integrates with other aspects of the Garmin Asus Nüvifone M10.

You can pick up locations from email, the web, and messages. And you can send a location via MMS with a map attached or via SMS with latitude and longitude and a URL to a Google Map, and via email with a map or URL too.