It is good news for smartphone buffs that Asus and Garmin are jointly developing the Nuvifone smartphone, which is expected to be a touch screen device packed with a number of wonderful features.

Olathe, Kansas based navigational device manufacturer Garmin Ltd., on Wednesday, announced that it has got into a "strategic alliance" with Asustek Computer Inc. to bring out a new feature-rich mobile phone, Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 that is expected to be offering a number of location-based services, such as driving directions, weather and traffic information and connections to social networking Internet sites.

Chairman and CEO Garmin, Min Kao stated that the company has been working with Asus for more than a year to develop the nuvifone G60. Kao said, "This alliance is advantageous to both companies because it allows us to combine our resources and establish a strong foundation from which we will innovate and introduce the world to the benefits of (location-based services)-centric mobile phones."

In a statement, Asus CEO Jonney Shih said, "This alliance allows Asus and Garmin to seamlessly combine the strengths of both companies to offer market-leading mobile phone solutions that are of the best design and highest quality. Asus and Garmin both believe strongly in the continuous investment of R&D resources to unfailingly provide leading-edge innovation to people and businesses."

Garmin and Asus, however, clarified that the deal is not for a joint venture or new company, like Sony Ericsson, and they will continue to work independently to market their own nonphone products. The companies stated that they will unveil their Nuvifone smartphone at this month's Mobile World Congress and they will bring out the multiple models of the phone, but they did not reveal anything about the phone’s features and price.

Whatever little info is available on Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60 is the guess work and dead reckoning of tech watchers, who say the phone could be based on Linux-based operating system, but its future versions could be the phones like Microsoft Windows Mobile or Google's Android. One thing is certain that the G60 is going to have a strong integration with a user's location. So, the people looking to know more about the Garmin-Asus nuvifone G60, will have to wait until the end of this month.