Archive for category Linux

FAQ: Using your smartphone safely

Posted by My Cool Gadget in Blackberry, Google Android, Java, Linux, Maemo, Others, Palm, Symbian, Windows Mobile, iPhone on March 10th, 2010

What’s the biggest security threat to my mobile phone?

Losing it.

“You are way more likely to leave it in the back of a taxi than to have someone break into it,” Charlie Miller, a principal analyst at consultancy Independent Security Evaluators, said in a recent interview. The best way to protect data in the event of losing a device is to not store sensitive information on it, he said. If you must store sensitive information on it, use a password on the phone and encrypt the data. Devices can be configured so that they ask for a password every time email or a VPN is accessed. Use a strong enough password that a stranger can’t guess it. And back up your data frequently.

There are also ways to lock the phone remotely or wipe the data if it is stolen. AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel said users who lose their phone should call the company immediately and “with just a keystroke, we can prevent anyone else from using the phone–and from running up charges.”

A number of companies offer software and services to protect mobile phones. One of them is a start-up called Lookout that offers a Web-based service that backs up the data, remotely wipes the data if stolen, can help locate the device, and includes antivirus and firewall protection.

Mobile device users should also be careful about leaving the phone unattended, or loaning it to people. Spyware can be installed without you knowing it if someone has physical access to the device and knows your password if you have one set. For instance, the PhoneSnoop program can be used with BlackBerry devices to remotely turn the microphone on to eavesdrop on nearby conversations. However, a spokesperson for BlackBerry maker RIM points out that if the application is installed, the user would be able to see it running and could then remove it.

Can mobile phones get viruses?

Yes.

Mobile viruses, worms and Trojans have been around for years. They typically arrive via email but can also spread via SMS and other means. Mobile phone users should be diligent in installing security software and other updates for their devices. All the major desktop security vendors have mobile antivirus and related offerings.

In November, several worms hit the iPhone, but only devices that had been jailbroken so they can run apps other than those approved by Apple. One worm changes the wallpaper on affected devices to a photo of 80s pop singer Rick Astley of “Rickrolling” fame. The second, more dangerous worm attempts to remotely control affected iPhones and steal data such as bank login IDs. Jailbroken iPhones have also been directly hacked via SMS, including by one Dutch hacker who was demanding US$7 from victims for information on how to secure their iPhones.

Miller says: “Don’t jailbreak your phone. It breaks all the security, basically.” If you simply must jailbreak it, you should change the default root password and not install SSH (Secure Shell network protocol).

What are other types of attacks?

Just like with computer users, smartphone users are vulnerable to email and Web-based attacks like phishing and other social-engineering efforts. All attackers have to do is create a malicious Web page and lure someone to visit the site where malware can then be downloaded onto the mobile device. People should avoid clicking on links in emails and text messages on their mobile device. (For more anti-phishing tips read “FAQ: Recognizing phishing emails.”)

SMS offers another avenue for attack. Last year, researchers demonstrated several ways of attacking phone using SMS messages. In one, they exploited a vulnerability in the way the iPhone handles SMS messages. Researchers also showed how an attacker could spoof an SMS to make it look like it comes from the carrier to get the target to either download malware or visit a site hosting it. In another proof-of-concept attack, a text message was used to launch a Web browser on a mobile device and direct it to a site that could host malware. When the attack is used to phish for personal information it is referred to as “SMiShing.”

Is it safe to use Wi-Fi and Bluetooth?

Yes and no.

If you are doing something sensitive on your phone, like checking a bank account or making a payment, don’t use the free Wi-Fi at a coffee shop or other access point. Use your password-protected Wi-Fi at home or the cellular network to avoid what is called as a man-in-the-middle attack in which traffic is intercepted. Pairing a mobile phone with another Bluetooth-enabled device, like a headset, means any device that can “discover” another Bluetooth device can send unsolicited messages or do things that could lead to extra fees, data being compromised or corrupted, data stolen in an attack called “bluesnarfing,” or the device being infected with a virus. In general, disable Wi-Fi and Bluetooth unless you absolutely need to use them.

Which is safer: The iPhone or Android?

Apple vets all the apps that are used on the iPhone, and that tight regulation of the Apps store has kept users safe from malicious apps so far. Nothing is foolproof, however. Once apps are approved they can do any number of things. For instance, Apple removed free games in November developed by Storm8 that were found to be collecting users’ phone numbers.

From an architecture standpoint, Android offers more granular access control. But the open-source nature of the Android platform means apps aren’t as controlled as they are on the iPhone and holes can be introduced by any number of parties. For instance, Miller found a vulnerability in the Android mobile platform last year that could have allowed an attacker to remotely take control of the browser, access credentials, and install a keystroke logger if the user visited a malicious Web page. The hole was not in code written by Google, but was contributed by a third party to the open-source Android Project. However, any risk was mitigated by an application sandboxing technique Google uses that is designed to protect the device from unauthorized or malicious software that gets onto the phone, Google said. Miller recommends that Android users only download software from trustworthy vendors and reputable sites.

Are standard mobile phones safe?

Obviously regular mobile phones don’t pose the Web-based threats that smartphones do. But they are still used to store sensitive information that can be accessed by gaining access to the device. For instance, the inbox and outbox for text messages can contain information that can be used for identity fraud, said Mark Beccue, a senior analyst for consumer mobility at ABI Research. “Regardless of what type of cell phone, the most dangerous current threat is through a cellphone’s in/out message boxes,” he said. “Clear (them) out regularly. Do not transmit full account numbers, PIN or passwords within a text message unless you immediately delete the out box message.”

Standard phones that support Java can be susceptible to certain threats that smartphones are. For instance, scammers in Russia and Indonesia are hiding a Trojan in pirated software that surreptitiously sends SMS messages to premium rate numbers – costing as much as US$5 each, thus racking up huge bills, said Roel Schouwenberg, a senior antivirus researcher at Kaspersky Lab.

And what about spam?

That’s a growing problem on mobile devices. For information on what to do when you get mobile spam read “FAQ: How to vanquish mobile spam.”

This story was orginally published on InSecurity Complex on CNET News.

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Review – Nokia N900 (with Maemo Operating System)

Posted by My Cool Gadget in Linux on February 25th, 2010

Design

The N900 is best described as chunky. The phone won’t fit into a pocket on a pair of skinny jeans and tips the scale at 181g. It also doesn’t have the typical tell-tale signs of a phone since there are no Call and End keys. In fact, there are no physical buttons on the front. Littered around the sides are the mini-USB port, volume control, power nub, camera shutter, keylock slider, 3.5mm audio jack and a stylus slot.

The heft of the N900, however, delivers a very solid feel despite the plastic battery cover at the back. Like the earlier N810 Internet Tablet, the N900 has a QWERTY keyboard hidden under the generous 3.5-inch 800 x 480-pixel touchscreen. Sliding the phone open feels like there are two pieces of rough plastic gliding over each other–we wished the mechanism was a little smoother. However, we like the initial resistance which prevents accidental opening of the keyboard and the final snap into position.

The N900 has a resistive display. This means it requires a slight pressure to register a command and, of course, it’d work with a stylus. So instead of flicking (which works occasionally) on the display, you’d have to tap-and-hold-and-swipe across the panel. We didn’t encounter any crippling issues with the screen as it was very responsive and the software is finger-friendly, so there’s hardly any need to reach for the pointing device.

There’s not much space between the buttons on the three-row keyboard, but at least the keys are adequately sized. They have a non-slip texture and a slight bump each, which makes it easy to feel each key apart, contributing to a decent typing experience. The spacebar is placed off center toward the right. We didn’t have any issues with this, but if you use your left thumb out of habit to press the space bar, you may find this layout slightly inconvenient.

Features

Maemo 5
The N900 runs on the Linux-based Maemo 5 operating system. Users who are familiar with the Linux operating system can probably identify with the interface of the N900, but Nokia users who are used to the Symbian S60 software may find themselves stumped by Maemo 5 initially.

The N900 is designed with the desktop experience in mind, so the device is used almost entirely in the landscape mode. Right now, only the dial pad, contact list (when accessed from the dial pad) and the gallery can be used in portrait mode. The onboard accelerometer also lets you rotate the phone to get to the dial pad (no smart dialing, though) automatically.

Think of the interface as a three-level menu system. The top layer consists of four home screens which you can customize with widgets, shortcuts, Web bookmarks and contacts. You can also download different themes, change the background and remove the panels if you don’t need that many home screens.

The second layer consists of two components. By default, it goes to the main menu, but if you have applications running in the background, it’ll bring up a window that shows all the active programs. From here, you can toggle between different apps or close them by tapping on the x indicator. The main menu has 15 icons and these are the ones which Nokia deems important enough to put it on the first page of the menu. The rest of the apps goes one level down in “More…”.

To quit any of the menus, simply tap on an empty area on the screen. It can be confusing and first-time users may wonder where to tap. And since there are no physical buttons, going back to the home screen requires a few taps, depending on how “deep” you are into the menus. There’s also no option to rearrange the applications, so you’re stuck with the default layout. As you install more programs, these are added to the bottom of the expanding list.

The limitations of the operating system don’t just end there. The N900 doesn’t support multimedia messaging (MMS) which, frankly, isn’t a big deal, but it’s annoying to know that it’s lacking the feature until a firmware upgrade fixes this. The device has a FM transmitter/receiver, but doesn’t support FM radio out-of-the-box. Fortunately, there’s a plugin which can be downloaded to enable that. The N900 supports Microsoft Exchange, but only the 2007 version and not 2003–an instant deal-breaker for us. To download content from our server, we had to connect the N900 to the PC via the mini-USB cable and synchronize with the PC Suite application.

We have a short video of the Maemo 5 user interface below:

Web browser
Now that we’ve got our grouses out of the way, let’s focus on where the N900 truly shines, its excellent Web browser. This is based on Mozilla technology, offering both AJAX and Adobe Flash Player 9.4 support. This means you can view Flash content including videos and games directly from the browser. It’s fast in rendering Web pages including content heavy sites. YouTube and Vimeo video-sharing sites also gave us pleasing results. They weren’t particular fast (this would depend on the speed of your data connection or Wi-Fi network) or offered the best quality clips, but we definitely could watch some videos while passing time or during short commutes. Playing Flash games (which are generally more resource intensive) on some of the sites that we tried was very laggy, so that’s a little disappointing.

Messaging
On the N900, SMS and instant messages are integrated in Conversations which displays them in a threaded format. It’ll also support Ovi by Nokia, Skype, Google Talk, Jabber and SIP. We had no problems with the interface layout although more IM programs would have been sweet. And like most current Nokia smartphones running on S60, the N900 handles email accounts with ease. Setting up Gmail on the device took only a few seconds, but we were soon disappointed to find that it doesn’t synchronize with other Google services such as Calendar, at least not without some manual configuration. Alternatively, you can use Mail for Exchange to work with Google Sync to synchronize Google Calendar and Contacts. For those who have Outlook (running on Exchange 2003) synced with their Google accounts, this is one workaround to get contacts and calendar entries to the device without connecting to the PC Suite.

Navigation
The N900 is currently preinstalled with a barebones version of Maps. This is in stark contrast to Ovi Maps which is now already in version 3.0 on Nokia S60 smartphones. There are no turn-by-turn features or 3D imagery. To be fair, Nokia said that the Maemo OS is still in its early stages and improvements are definitely on the cards.

Applications, Maemo Select and Ovi Store
Right now, there are about 47 applications available for Maemo 5. These can be downloaded from Maemo Select and subsequently on the Ovi Store. Nokia said the latter is expected to be available before the end of the year, so it could be anytime now. By the time the device reaches the hands of consumers next year in Asia Pacific, things should already be up and running. There are already a few applications which we found useful such as Skype for VoIP calls, Qik for live video streaming, MaStory for posting to blog sites, Mauku for Twitter and widgets like Conversations which displays incoming SMSes directly on the home screen, Facebook tickertape, news and weather updates.

Games
Gameplay was excellent for the few that we tried. Graphics were smooth and that’s probably due to the 3D graphics accelerator onboard and the display held up well. See our video of Bounce below.

Music/video player
The N900 can handle the standard array for music and video formats. You can play MP3, WMA, AAC, M4A and WAV audio. For video, MP4, AVI, WMV, MPEG-4, Xvid, 3GP, H.264 and H.263 are supported.

Camera
Imaging features are basic for the 5-megapixel camera which is accompanied by a dual-LED flash on the N900. You can adjust white balance, exposure, ISO and select between two resolution sizes (5 megapixels or 3.5 megapixels in widescreen). There are also settings for various flash modes as well as macro, portrait, landscape and action scenes. Shutter lag was measured at 0.6 second which was a little slow. See below for some sample images (you can download the full resolution file when you click on them) and a video.

Performance

According to Nokia, the 1,320mAh lithium-ion battery has a rated talktime of 9 hours. If you keep it on always online mode without actively using it, the cell would last between two and four days. In our tests, the battery lasted slightly over a day with occasional Web browsing, GPS navigation, application downloads, making a few calls and sending text messages.

The N900 is powered by an ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz processor and it’s excellent when multitasking. We could have 10 applications running in the background and had no problems switching between them. However, certain programs like Maps and the game Bounce took a few seconds to load.

Conclusion

We had our fair share of minor annoyances with the Maemo 5 and the operating system at this stage is still very raw. It feels more like a work-in-progress rather than one that’s ready for primetime. That said, the N900 may still win the hearts of early adopters and the tech-savvy crowd, but it probably isn’t meant for the mainstream user.

When we asked Nokia whether it’s easy to port S60 applications to the Linux-based Maemo 5, the company didn’t give a definitive answer. But it said that there is a programming break from S60 to Maemo. The Qt port is supposed to address this with a common framework. What’s more, Maemo 6 (codename Harmattan) is already on the horizon and, according to Nokia, it’ll support capacitive touchscreens. Will current Maemo 5 users get an upgrade to Maemo 6? That’s still up in the air for now.

No doubt, the N900 is a very robust device with more than its fair share of wireless capabilities, but it can certainly do with a lot more help with the software. We like the handset and its desktop-like experience, but can’t say that we’ve fallen in love with it. Once you start using the N900, you’d want the device to do a lot more. For developers and programmers, that may not be a huge issue since they can tinkle with the software, but for end-consumers, it’s a different story.

[By Damian Koh]



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Preview – Nokia N900

Posted by My Cool Gadget in Linux on December 22nd, 2009

Design

The N900 is best described as chunky. The phone won’t fit into a pocket on a pair of skinny jeans and tips the scale at 181g. It also doesn’t have the typical tell-tale signs of a phone since there are no Call and End keys. In fact, there are no physical buttons on the front. Littered around the sides are the mini-USB port, volume control, power nub, camera shutter, keylock slider, 3.5mm audio jack and a stylus slot.

The heft of the N900, however, delivers a very solid feel despite the plastic battery cover at the back. Like the earlier N810 Internet Tablet, the N900 has a QWERTY keyboard hidden under the generous 3.5-inch 800 x 480-pixel touchscreen. Sliding the phone open feels like there are two pieces of rough plastic gliding over each other–we wished the mechanism was a little smoother. However, we like the initial resistance which prevents accidental opening of the keyboard and the final snap into position.

The N900 has a resistive display. This means it requires a slight pressure to register a command and, of course, it’d work with a stylus. So instead of flicking (which works occasionally) on the display, you’d have to tap-and-hold-and-swipe across the panel. We didn’t encounter any crippling issues with the screen as it was very responsive and the software is finger-friendly, so there’s hardly any need to reach for the pointing device.

There’s not much space between the buttons on the three-row keyboard, but at least the keys are adequately sized. They have a non-slip texture and a slight bump each, which makes it easy to feel each key apart, contributing to a decent typing experience. The spacebar is placed off center toward the right. We didn’t have any issues with this, but if you use your left thumb out of habit to press the space bar, you may find this layout slightly inconvenient.

Features

Maemo 5
The N900 runs on the Linux-based Maemo 5 operating system. Users who are familiar with the Linux operating system can probably identify with the interface of the N900, but Nokia users who are used to the Symbian S60 software may find themselves stumped by Maemo 5 initially.

The N900 is designed with the desktop experience in mind, so the device is used almost entirely in the landscape mode. Right now, only the dial pad, contact list (when accessed from the dial pad) and the gallery can be used in portrait mode. The onboard accelerometer also lets you rotate the phone to get to the dial pad (no smart dialing, though) automatically.

Think of the interface as a three-level menu system. The top layer consists of four home screens which you can customize with widgets, shortcuts, Web bookmarks and contacts. You can also download different themes, change the background and remove the panels if you don’t need that many home screens.

The second layer consists of two components. By default, it goes to the main menu, but if you have applications running in the background, it’ll bring up a window that shows all the active programs. From here, you can toggle between different apps or close them by tapping on the x indicator. The main menu has 15 icons and these are the ones which Nokia deems important enough to put it on the first page of the menu. The rest of the apps goes one level down in “More…”.

To quit any of the menus, simply tap on an empty area on the screen. It can be confusing and first-time users may wonder where to tap. And since there are no physical buttons, going back to the home screen requires a few taps, depending on how “deep” you are into the menus. There’s also no option to rearrange the applications, so you’re stuck with the default layout. As you install more programs, these are added to the bottom of the expanding list.

The limitations of the operating system don’t just end there. The N900 doesn’t support multimedia messaging (MMS) which, frankly, isn’t a big deal, but it’s annoying to know that it’s lacking the feature until a firmware upgrade fixes this. The device has a FM transmitter/receiver, but doesn’t support FM radio out-of-the-box. Fortunately, there’s a plugin which can be downloaded to enable that. The N900 supports Microsoft Exchange, but only the 2007 version and not 2003–an instant deal-breaker for us. To download content from our server, we had to connect the N900 to the PC via the mini-USB cable and synchronize with the PC Suite application.

Web browser
Now that we’ve got our grouses out of the way, let’s focus on where the N900 truly shines, its excellent Web browser. This is based on Mozilla technology, offering both AJAX and Adobe Flash Player 9.4 support. This means you can view Flash content including videos and games directly from the browser. It’s fast in rendering Web pages including content heavy sites. YouTube and Vimeo video-sharing sites also gave us pleasing results. They weren’t particular fast (this would depend on the speed of your data connection or Wi-Fi network) or offered the best quality clips, but we definitely could watch some videos while passing time or during short commutes. Playing Flash games (which are generally more resource intensive) on some of the sites that we tried was very laggy, so that’s a little disappointing.

Messaging
On the N900, SMS and instant messages are integrated in Conversations which displays them in a threaded format. It’ll also support Ovi by Nokia, Skype, Google Talk, Jabber and SIP. We had no problems with the interface layout although more IM programs would have been sweet. And like most current Nokia smartphones running on S60, the N900 handles email accounts with ease. Setting up Gmail on the device took only a few seconds, but we were soon disappointed to find that it doesn’t synchronize with other Google services such as Calendar, at least not without some manual configuration. Alternatively, you can use Mail for Exchange to work with Google Sync to synchronize Google Calendar and Contacts. For those who have Outlook (running on Exchange 2003) synced with their Google accounts, this is one workaround to get contacts and calendar entries to the device without connecting to the PC Suite.

Navigation
The N900 is currently preinstalled with a barebones version of Maps. This is in stark contrast to Ovi Maps which is now already in version 3.0 on Nokia S60 smartphones. There are no turn-by-turn features or 3D imagery. To be fair, Nokia said that the Maemo OS is still in its early stages and improvements are definitely on the cards.

Applications, Maemo Select and Ovi Store
Right now, there are about 47 applications available for Maemo 5. These can be downloaded from Maemo Select and subsequently on the Ovi Store. Nokia said the latter is expected to be available before the end of the year, so it could be anytime now. By the time the device reaches the hands of consumers next year in Asia Pacific, things should already be up and running. There are already a few applications which we found useful such as Skype for VoIP calls, Qik for live video streaming, MaStory for posting to blog sites, Mauku for Twitter and widgets like Conversations which displays incoming SMSes directly on the home screen, Facebook tickertape, news and weather updates.

Games
Gameplay was excellent for the few that we tried. Graphics were smooth and that’s probably due to the 3D graphics accelerator onboard and the display held up well. See our video of Bounce below.

Music/video player
The N900 can handle the standard array for music and video formats. You can play MP3, WMA, AAC, M4A and WAV audio. For video, MP4, AVI, WMV, MPEG-4, Xvid, 3GP, H.264 and H.263 are supported.

[Damian Koh]

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Preview – Nokia N900

Posted by My Cool Gadget in Linux on September 9th, 2009

Nokia N900 (1)Nokia N900 (2)

Nokia N900 (3)The Nokia Internet Tablet series which debuted in 2005 has always been sidelined as a companion and an accessory for accessing the Internet on a large touchscreen handheld. It had a niche target audience and the devices never really hit big time. Things have evolved dramatically in the recent year with smartphones rapidly outfitted with large touch-sensitive displays, putting them in a head-on collision with the Tablets. The upcoming N900 addresses that issue with built-in cellular capabilities as well as pure processing power and a desktop-like experience in a pocket-friendly size, putting it back into the running. 

Unlike the earlier Internet Tablets, the N900 packs 3G and HSPA (10Mbps downlink, 2Mbps uplink) wireless radios, so obviously you can make and receive cellular calls with it. Under the hood is an ARM Cortex-A8 600MHz processor, up to 1GB of application memory and an OpenGL ES 2.0 graphics accelerator. The combined benefit delivers an ideal multitasking environment where several applications can run in the background at the same time without slowing down the device’s performance.

But what’s really different this time is the updated Linux-based Maemo 5 software that is supposed to bring a PC-like experience on a mobile device. You can access multiple “desktops” panels by swiping your finger across the 3.5-inch 800 x 480-pixel screen, while the accompanying dashboard lets you switch effortlessly between tasks and applications in the background. The Maemo browser, built with Mozilla technology, has full Adobe Flash 9.4 support and you can use the onscreen mouse pointer to copy-and-paste text, or apply a swirling motion gesture to zoom in and out of a Web page. The latter doesn’t seem to work as well compared with double tapping to achieve the same effect, as it seems to “jiggle” the page rather than to accurately zoom in.

Messaging on the N900 is also a deeply integrated function. SMSes are displayed in a threaded format so you can always follow up on past messages. The Messaging window also lets you view your IM chat history and check whether your contacts are available for chats. You can also view their status via the phonebook, and from there select a preferred mode such as Gtalk or Skype to contact someone. The buttons on the slide-out QWERTY appear fairly raised, so hopefully this will provide a good tactile experience even though the layout seems rather crammed. 

Nokia N900 (4)The N900 captures WVGA 16:9 videos and 5-megapixel images and you can tag (using the new tag cloud) and share content with your friends via Ovi Share, Facebook, Flickr, etc. According to the specifications, the Maemo 5 software currently doesn’t support MMS or the underlying WAP technology. For business users, Microsoft Exchange is also supported, so this means you get push-email and synchronization capabilities with Outlook calendars and contacts from the server to the N900. Maemo software as well as application updates can be done over-the-air, so you will not need to be connected to the PC to get software upgrades. 

At a glance, it’s clear the Maemo user interface is radically different from S60 which we have all become familiar with over the past few years. So how does the enhanced system fit into Nokia’s portfolio of devices? We suspect S60 will continue to form the backbone of the mobile operating system for Nokia smartphones for at least the next year. But moving forward, Maemo, which provides the flexibility of an open system, will gradually be pushed into the limelight. That’s not to say that S60 will wither away as it will still continue to be developed by members of the Symbian Foundation. What we may see is S60 being used in midrange handsets, with Maemo used to power higher-end devices. 

As to how the N900 and the recently launched Booklet 3G Netbook fit into Nokia’s portfolio of devices, a Nokia spokesperson said that the latter is an opportunity to bring a fresh perspective into the PC world.

The N900 is available for preorder in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden and the UK. According to Nokia, the device will hit the markets from October at 500 euros before tax and subsidies.

[Damian Koh]

Nokia N900 (5)Nokia N900 (6)

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Review Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60

Posted by My Cool Gadget in Linux on July 29th, 2009

Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 (1)Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 (2)

Design

The design of the G60 hasn’t changed much since its original announcement. It comes in a black soft-touch finish with silver trimmings and has clean front facade with just the screen and nuvifone brand printed under that. The screen measures 3.55 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 480 x 272 pixels. This LCD is unique in that it has a matte finish. Most mobile phone touchscreens are glossy, and while that makes colors stand out more, it can be a nuisance when viewed in direct sunlight due to reflections. Because of the handset’s focus on in-car navigation, the matte surface is ideal. It feels good to the touch, too, not unlike one of those high-quality screen protectors that retail for about S$12.

The dimensions of the G60 are 112 x 58.1 x 14.6mm and it weighs 137g. This isn’t the lightest phone around, but the size and weight are quite similar to other full-touchscreen smartphones like the iPhone and Samsung Omnia.

A power button adorns the top of the device, along with a 2.5mm audio port. We would have preferred a 3.5mm version as that would have been compatible with most standard headphones. To be fair, it’s better than having no audio jack at all. The right side is where volume controls and a camera shortcut are found. All other I/O ports are on the left side including a mini-USB, microSD card slot and a dock connector.

Provided with the G60 is a comprehensive car kit for in-car navigation. Bundled are a dock that attaches to a windscreen and a car charger which draws power from a car cigarette lighter. The suction base and charger worked well in our tests and were easy to install.

On the back, you’ll find the Garmin-Asus logo beside the camera lens. Above this lens is the speaker for speakerphone functions and turn-by-turn instructions.

Features

Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 (3)As a mobile device, the G60 comes with quite a number of wireless features. These include HSPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Like some other smartphones, you can share the nuvifone G60’s HSPA connection with a computer using a USB cable. Unfortunately, this can’t be done wirelessly through Bluetooth.

The interface of this nuvifone is quite unlike most phones. Turning it on, you’ll see three large icons labeled Call, Search and View Map, while other functions appear in a scrollable list with smaller icons. Let’s explore the mobile phone features first. Tapping on Call will bring you to the phone app where you can make calls and access your contacts list. Aside from importing contacts from a SIM card, you can also sync your Outlook data using a bundled Windows app.

Text messages appear in a threaded format so you can track your conversations with contacts easily. There doesn’t appear to be any way to send multimedia messages (MMS) and sending one to the nuvifone doesn’t work either. Setting up email is pretty simple. We tried it out with a Gmail account and all the settings were automatically filled in for us. Attachments such as PDFs, Microsoft Word and Excel documents and images can be viewed, but not edited. Typing on the G60 is achieved through an onscreen keyboard. This worked fine for us in landscape mode, with large keys laid out in QWERTY format that can be tapped on with the thumbs. In portrait mode though, the keys are laid out in alphabetical order in five rows. We don’t know what possessed the company to arrange it this way but we found it impossible to use. There is no option to switch that to QWERTY and we ended up switching to landscape orientation every time text input was needed.

Aside from the strange alphabetical keyboard, there were other aspects of the Linux-based operating system we didn’t like. When connected to a computer as a mass storage device to access its 4GB internal memory, the phone radio would turn off, which mean we couldn’t receive calls.

The G60 also lacks a Home key. This means that if you delve six or seven levels into sub-menus, you will have to press the onscreen Back button six or seven times to get back to the Home screen. Also, when the screen is turned off, unlocking the device requires a double tap. We didn’t mind this most of the time, except when receiving calls–having to tap twice to pick up the phone is very unintuitive. Furthermore, you can’t copy-and-paste text.

Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 (4)You can surf the Internet with the G60 using the Webkit-based browser. There’s no Flash support and compared to other smartphone browsers like Safari on the iPhone and Opera Mobile on Windows Mobile, it felt a little slow in rendering pages. Nonetheless, most pages appeared accurately and it’s a good feature to have.

The navigation aspect of the G60 is where this device shines. Finding an address is idiot-proof. Typing in an address, for example, requires you to first tap in a house/building number, followed by a street name. After that’s done, the software will give you some suggestions, and chances are one of them will match. There’s even a local search feature which connects to a server to find points of interest. We weren’t able to test this out properly because of a “server error” message, but this is supposed to tell you where places such as petrol kiosks and tourist attractions can be found.

Turn-by-turn navigation is available by default and your local maps will be bundled with the G60. According to Asus, buying other countries’ maps can be done through the Garmin-Asus Web site. We couldn’t find any sign of Assisted-GPS on the device, and cannot confirm if this is not available or simply invisible to the user. In our GPS tests, there didn’t appear to be any cellular data transfer activity. We have contacted Asus to clarify and are awaiting a response. Even then, getting a satellite lock didn’t take long most of the time, and we found driving directions to be accurate. The internal digital compass also tells you which direction you are facing, which is useful when orienting yourself with the GPS for walking directions.

Other GPS features include the ability to geotag a picture, sending your location through an email or text message easily and tap on an address found on a Web page to quickly show it on the map.

An Asus spokesperson told us during the CommunicAsia tradeshow in Singapore last month that the G60 will be the first and last device making use of its proprietary Linux platform. That’s not bad news altogether as Windows Mobile and Android (to be used by Garmin-Asus in future devices) are much better smartphone platforms with decent third-party developer support. On the other hand, these established smartphone operating systems can learn a thing or two from some of the navigation-friendly features found on the G60 implemented.

The 3-megapixel camera found on the G60 is responsive, our only gripes being the lack of an LED for dark situations and a very stiff shutter button on the right. Images are decent as long as you keep your expectations in check.

Performance

Calls quality is good on the G60, and the speakerphone worked well, perfect for handsfree use in cars. Battery life is rated at 4 hours of talktime, and we got about two days of use with some GPS navigation before the 1,100mAh battery went flat.

The G60 doesn’t multitask and its 128MB of RAM seemed sufficient to keep it chugging along. There’s no other phone running the same OS, so we can’t compare it to anything. But in general, the system was responsive, slowing down only in certain areas like the Web browser when a very large page started loading.

Conclusion

The Garmin name is synonymous with navigation devices and the G60 does not disappoint in that area. While it’s sad that this phone will be the last of its kind (software-wise), we see some strengths that Garmin-Asus could certainly use in its future products. If GPS is the main consideration for your next mobile phone purchase, the nuvifone G60 is definitely worth considering. We are still awaiting pricing and specific availability details and will update this review when Asus responds.

[Review by John Chan]

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