For Palm® Treo™ and Centro™ smartphone users and GPS enthusiasts in the United States and Canada, Palm, Inc. and Garmin® International, Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd., announced a Palm GPS Navigator featuring Garmin Mobile™ XT software for the first time. Drivers using the new GPS Navigator with their Palm smartphones can rely on turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions to easily find their destinations as well as millions of points of interest, updated traffic, fuel prices, hotel prices and weather forecasts.(1) Expected late November, the Palm GPS Navigator featuring Garmin software will be $249 USD.
The Palm GPS Navigator with Garmin Mobile XT Software is expected to attract new users to the mobile-phone GPS market. According to a report by Canalys, the mobile navigation space has maintained a frenetic pace during the last 12 months, with some vendors seeing year-on-year doubling of shipments or better.
Garmin Mobile XT is preloaded on a microSD card (with miniSD and standard SD card adapters) that includes Garmin navigation software for the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico. Customers can easily route to a specific street address or choose from more than 6 million points of interest – such as restaurants, hotels, ATMs, and gas stations. In addition to turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions, users also will see their exact position on a detailed moving map. If a turn is missed along the way, a new route will be recalculated automatically. Garmin’s map data is provided by NAVTEQ – a world leader in quality mapping.
“With Garmin’s high-powered software, Palm smartphone users will have GPS capabilities while on the go,” said Ed Tse, accessory solutions product manager at Palm, Inc. “Palm’s legendary touch screen and full QWERTY keyboard allow for quick input and inquiry.”
“Garmin is pleased to provide a navigation solution so Palm users can transform their favorite Palm Treo or Centro smartphone into a full-featured Garmin GPS navigator,” said Charles Morse, director of mobile and PND marketing at Garmin. “Garmin Mobile XT is easy to use, has no monthly charges, and will help ensure that Palm users never get lost again.”
In addition to navigation, Garmin Mobile XT includes free access to Garmin Online™ so that customers have useful, updated information at their fingertips, such as traffic, fuel prices, hotel prices and weather forecasts.(2) The traffic service from www.traffic.com identifies accidents, road construction or other incidents affecting traffic, and routes users around the congestion. The fuel-price feature displays a filling station’s name, fuel price, type of fuel and distance to the station (U.S. only).
Pricing and Availability
The Palm GPS Navigator featuring Garmin Mobile XT software will be available in late November for $249 USD in the United States at Palm stores (www.palm.com/retail) and online at http://store.palm.com. It also will be available in Canada online at http://canadastore.palm.com.