According to Digitimes, Garmin's much talked about Nuvifone will arrive some time in Q4 to the U.S., although no mention of other markets was made. Garmin prides itself on developing and making its products in-house, but this time around they've outsourced the manufacturing to Asus.

Part of the reason behind this has to do with the complexity of making a phone, the validation process involved and the lack of in-house expertise when it comes to RF related technologies.

The Nuvifone won't be the only mobile phone in Garmin's product line-up, as the company has drawn up its roadmap until 2010 and is expecting to add more products of this type to its portfolio.

It will be interesting to see how well the Nuvifone does when it arrives, and Garmin isn't the first GPS manufacturer to dabble in the mobile phone market, although we have to say that the Nuvifone looks far more promising than some of the Windows Mobile devices we've seen from other manufacturers in the past.

More here