Gizmondo have been burning VC for a while now in the UK with a shop (”boutique?”) in London’s Regent street (I’d love to know what the rent on that is). I do have a soft spot for them - you have to admire any company that tries go against Sony and Nintendo with a new hand held games console.

Admiration doesn’t pay the bills though and somehow I suspect they may have been a tad optimistic in trying to poach gamers away from the PSP et.al, which is why they’ve repositioned the device as a personal navigator and started pushing the GPS functionality a little harder.

They launched in the US yesterday with an SRP of $229. Actually you get a lot for your money - you get a games console, media player, GPS and GPRS/GSM device. Unfortunately you don’t get Wifi which is fast becoming a desirable feature in mobile electronics.

More details and pictures on the gizmondo website.

[edit: I've just looked on their shop and although the device does have an embedded GPS, the mapping software will set you back an extra 250 bucks which could start to hurt. For once we get a better deal in the UK - we can pick up the unit+navigiation package for 200 quid - about $350]