New Garmin PDA made by Sony???

[Redmond]

The new soon to be released Garmin iQue 3600 is the first PDA to include integrated GPS technology.

To me, there seems to be alot of similarities to a Sony Clie. Could it be that Sony is manufacturing the iQue for Garmin?

Sony traits:

- Powered by Palm OS 5 (like all newer Clie's - I know its no big deal but. . .)
- MP3 Player (like many Clie's)
- Voice recorder (just like the NX70V)
- Microphone (like the NX Series)
- Speaker (I'm assuming here, better than Palm)
- Built-in 32 MB of memory (maybe another Sony ability but specified by Garmin - Sony is skinny on memory because they want to sell Memory Sticks)
- New ARM processor (also used in newer Sonys)
- Display: 2.16" x 3.24" (54 x 81 mm), 320 x 480 pixel, high-resolution, color display (like Sony Nx Series)
- Jog Dial (like most Clie's)
- Virtual Graffiti (just like the Nx Series
- Looks Metallic like Sony NR Series.

Heck, maybe it's made for Garmin by Handera for all I know, but I think not. Handera's been pretty out of it lately.

Anybody have a clue or guesses?

Just curious.

[cbulock]

While it's possible, if you look at Pocket PC's they also have most all these features. I would say it's likely not made by Sony. Also, the CPU is made by Motorola, while Sony uses Intel CPU's. It's quite possible that the screen was made by Sony though, as I hear some PPC screens are made by them. These are just a few points, but there are probably many more details that would show that Sony probably didn't make this.

[thack]

As much as it sounds like a possibility, I really doubt it. Garmin probably had it contract manufactured by Flextronics, SCI, or similar. IIRC Palm used contract manufacturing for the m505/m515.

The ARM processor used by Garmin is from Motorola and the ARM used by Sony is from Intel. All the other features such as 320x480, virtual graffiti, voice recorder, MP3 are being enabled by OS5. I'm sure you will see many more handhelds with these features.

[Eric S]

In fact, if you look closely at the jogwheel, it's got a little nub on it like the HandEra did, so I suspect that if they had any outside help, it wasn't from Sony. I think the Treo's have the same nub as well.

Note: The jogwheel is one of the few downsides I see to the Garmin for my own use.