Rumor: Garmin Nuvifone headed to AT&T for $499

What would you pay for the Garmin Nuvifone?

(Credit: Engadget Mobile)

It's no secret that the Garmin Nuvifone is one of the most anticipated smartphones of this year--partly because of its killer feature set (GPS with full navigation, 3.5-inch touch screen, quad-band world roaming, HSDPA, Wi-Fi, 3-megapixel camera, and so on) and partly because everyone wants to see if Garmin can actually pull this off. However, what has remained a secret is the carrier and pricing, or at least, until now?

According to a story from Engadget Mobile, one of its readers received a customer survey from Garmin asking, "Now, how likely would you be to buy the Garmin Nuvifone (for yourself or as a gift) if offered by AT&T for $499.99 with a two year contract? You would be required to have both a data plan that would include unlimited Internet browsing and unlimited Navigation for $19.99 per month and one of the standard voice rate plans for a monthly fee." Zoiks! What? OK, it's not so much the carrier we're surprised about (AT&T is HSDPA ready, T-Mobile isn't--simple as that) but $500? Seriously? The AT&T Tilt offers pretty much the same features for $299.99.

Now, Garmin is probably just testing the waters and again, this all speculation at this point, but we're thinking it's going to get a lot of "no, thank yous" for that price. Which begs the question: What's a fair price? What would you be willing to pay for the Nuvifone?