Garmin-Asus will make the most out of their presence at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain next week by using it as a platform to introduce the new nüvifone G60, the firstfruits of their labor that will be unleased to the world. This is a quad-band GSM handset and boasts 3.5G connectivity that caters for high speed downlink packet access (HSDPA) networks as well as Wi-Fi connections, making it one truly connected phone that allows you to go online from virtually anywhere without suffering from poor download speeds (as long as the signal strength is strong enough and there are enough 3G spots around, of course, since surfing on EDGE or GPRS can be quite a pain in this day and age). More on the G60 right after the jump.

Some of the nüvifone G60’s features include a generous 3.55″ display which boasts a trio of primary icons – “Call,” “Search,” and “View Map.” There are secondary icons as well that appear on the side of the home screen, and these can be organized according to your own preference. Icons can be scrolled up and down using the swipe of a finger, while the integrated accelerometer allows you to view each screen in either portrait or landscape orientation, depending on what you’re looking at. Designers of the nüvifone G60 developed it in mind with an LBS-centric design philosophy, where location information is integrated with everyday applications such as email, SMS, photo sharing, social networking and more. Sounds fun, but not so if you’ve informed your boss that you have to take a week off to attend your grandmother’s funeral in Ohio while the G60 shows that you’re in Miami instead.

There is no word on pricing or availability, but we expect the G60 to be out sometime before the first half of 2009 is over. Nice to see more smartphones hit the market to heat up the competition.

Press Release