French satnav lovers too impatient to wait for Garmin’s nuvifone will soon have a Windows Mobile alternative from Airis, when the company’s T482 GPS smartphone goes on sale.  While the device is a quadband GSM/GPRS/EDGE device with Bluetooth 2.0, WiFi and a 3.2-inch QVGA touchscreen, the real draw is the SiRFStar III GPS receiver and included CoPilot Live navigation software.  It also has a 2-megapixel camera, microSD slot and FM tuner.

Powered by a 416MHz Marvell PXA270 processor and arriving with 128MB of ROM and 64MB of RAM, the T482 measures 125 x 62 x 14mm and weighs in at 165g.  It’s coated in a non-slip matte rubber, and Airis are quoting up to 250hrs use as an unconnected PDA, 100hrs cellular standby or 4hrs talktime.  Pricing is set at €424 with French mapping or €478 for European mapping, but Airis will also supply the T482 with neither CoPilot Live nor maps for €399, though removing that advantage pits the handset against some worthy competition.

More worrying is the fact that hands-on reports are looking less than favourable.  A commenter at NaviGadget describes the T482 as “useless as [a] mobile phone”, criticising Airis’ choice of Windows Mobile 5 (rather than 6 or 6.1), the fact that the keys cannot be locked and a poorly designed connector for an external GPS aerial that, once opened, cannot be closed up again.  Most bizarrely, the car-kit that Airis supply apparently presses the buttons around the edge of the smartphone, triggering the camera or, in some circumstances, powering off the device altogether!

It’s hard to recommend the T482 after those concerns, but if you’re still interested it’ll be on-sale SIM-free from Airis’ site.

[via Engadget Mobile]