An atheist is a man who has no invisible means of support - Fulton Sheen
|
|
|
Head to head: Google and Nokia Ovi satnavs
GOOGLE'S DECISION to enable free turn-by-turn navigation on handsets running its Android operating system is the start of the long road to demise for established satnav vendors.
Google's announcement followed that of Nokia, which made its Ovi Maps freely available for a number of handsets earlier this year. Google finally launched its turn-by-turn Navigation application for UK users a couple of weeks ago.
We decided to take the two free navigation tools, Ovi Maps and Google Navigation, for a test drive to see which loses its way. In our entirely unscientific usage, both systems performed well, though not without their idiosyncrasies.
Nokia's Ovi Maps was tested on the firm's N97 Mini handset. Things don't look all that promising when faced with the clunky interface, especially apparent when trying to set up in a hurry. However once you learn its little foibles all is well and on our handset, a suitable GPS signal was picked up fast.
What Ovi Maps lacks in interface niceties it makes up for with a clean, concise display. Unlike Google's software, Ovi Maps displays multi-lane directions. While its satnav application may be free, Nokia do charge if you want traffic updates, something which is free on Google's software.
Calculating routes and adjusting to changes in the route are all as expected, which frankly, is good enough. The problem is while Nokia's solution may do the job, when sat next to Google's software it feels outdated.
We tested Google Maps Navigation on a Nexus One, Google's own handset. The software is feature rich, with tools such as Street View built in, but in other areas it's clear that Google's software is still in beta.
The Navigation application is gotten to by clicking on the rather unimaginatively named "car home" icon. Once in, anyone who has used the maps application on an Android phone or an Iphone will immediately be at home. The process of setting up a destination is a whole lot clearer and requires less fiddling around.
When driving features such as Street View are simply distracting eye candy. That said, the comprehensive map overlays the usual points of interest such as petrol stations but also a traffic overlay. However, on our travels we found that zooming into the map to get a more detailed view of the surroundings meant that it wouldn't follow our location cursor.
The accuracy of traffic status on Google's system is a bit hit and miss, regardless of where you are. We tried Google's Navigation through a number of US states, including Google's home state of California, as well as London, and found the accuracy of traffic updates to vary wildly.
Google's Navigation software was fast in just about all aspects of operation, from destination search, to route calculation and adapting to route changes. Nice touches include the ability to choose from different routes, if they exist, and an impressive voice search for locations.
Disappointingly, neither Google nor Nokia included speed camera information on their maps, something which Tomtom and most other satnav vendors include as standard on even their most basic of models.
The weak spot of both Ovi Maps and Navigation is the reliance on wireless data connectivity to download maps and other data. Although some map data is cached, we found that at times there were delays, especially due to in-journey route changes. Given the patchy nature of connectivity in most countries, this will be a major stumbling block for either system to overcome.
Google and Nokia may look to bundle some basic, high level map data on supporting devices' removable storage. Both firms' free satnav systems have excellent map data, which is not surprising given Nokia's acquisition of Navteq and Google, through its various map data arrangements and its regiment of Street View cars.
Satnav vendors may argue that their devices provide a reliable service without a dependency on wireless data connectivity. Given that portable storage capacity is going up and all Nokia and Google have to do is include some basic country wide data, it really does look like Tomtom and its ilk are at the end of the road.
The fact that Google Navigation looks like a work in progress will give Tomtom, Garmin and other satnav vendors some comfort for the time being. The problem for them is that Google's free service already offers enough to warrant many users to ditch their dedicated satnav units and just go with an Android handset.
Share this:
Share
My mail convert to google a/c.
Because the Nokia has map data pre-loaded it is lightning quick at finding addresses and poi's. I compared the Nokia x6 with the nexus1 and everytime the x6 left it standing. The nexus has to first make a connection to the web to find the address and then because the way the Google 'navigation' software is configured it has to make another connection to work-out the route. So where you are up and running with the Nokia, with the Google you're left sitting there hoping you've got a decent enough signal.
Well not 100% but it was a major deciding factor. MY car was broken into and I was out a GPS and a mobile contract. I actually bought a new Garmin nuvi 265wt, but started feeling silly when I realized how little it added to the basic model I recently lost.
This article, well actually the comments actually pushed me to return the garmin and get a real phone.
OVI Maps does not require a data connection. Get your facts straight, you ignorant idiot.
No one else seemed to notice, so I'd like to point out that you can actually download OVI maps ahead of time.
I'm suprised no one else mentioned that.
Tomtom dedicated sat navs are still better than Ovi Maps or Google maps and I am willing to pay a premium for them. What really gets me is the price of the map updates. £70 for UK/Western Europe update when I can get free updates on Ovi? This is where Tomtom are going to have to cut prices first to keep people using their devices.
the Inkuirer "theirviews" is most of times misleading, if not false.
This is not a surprise.
I was wonderig whether to buy or not a Nokia mobile phone to have a handset navigator.
Now I will certainly get a Nokia/Ovi map model.
Thank you Inkuirer to clear my mind, which is just doing the opposite of what suggested by the Inkuirer (sort of) reviewers.
OVI maps does have speed camera data and also knows the speed limit. At least on the version I am using from betalabs. Try the the Surfer Dude navigation - "hey dude what's the hurry". gotta laugh the first 100 times. Total crap review.
Check out this Nokia Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VXCUYObmELQ
Using Ovi Maps offline on a helicopter. :-)
The entire purpose I bought a Nokia 5230 recently was because of OVI maps, and being able to download full country maps offline onto a memory card so as not to incur fees when the GPS was used abroad, someones not checking their facts very carefully here at all it seems.
This review is a complete load of sh*t.
Whilst i'm really beginning to hate my n97 mini, the ovi maps is one of its saving points.
This review goes to highlight the direction this website has taken in the last 12 months.
Crap, just plain old vanilla crap.
bartenders report - 2 pints of flat lager
The desire for these large companies to despatch companies such as TomTom and Garmin to history may seem fine now.
But giving these services away for free cannot last forever. Nokia paid about $8bn dollars for Navteq, I find it difficult to believe that simply giving away their mapping data for nothing is a sustainable business model. It's very unlikely it will result in enough additional handsets sales to cover the large costs of map data collection in the meantime.
Bizarrely they still use older map data than Garmin despite their ownership of Navteq.
Google maps has the enormous disadvantage of over air maps which are far from reliable in areas out of 3g coverage. I'm not sure of the quality of european map data, but the quality of the google proprietary data in the US has shown itself to be fairly awful.
It doesn't matter how free a service is if doesn't work or leads you into a farmers field.
Don't be surprised to see prices as they drive the traditional sat-nav operators to the wall go up, while providing nothing more than a basic a-b service with little or very poor traffic data and no innovation in the GPS arena.
Garmin and TomTom are attempting to innovate, especially in the case of TomTom with it's superb IQ routes and HD traffic,
these quite rightly attract a premium price for those who wish to receive more than an a-b service.
did you actually check an ovi maps handset because i guarentee you are completely wrong about ovi maps,traffic,speedcams etc,if your going to review something get your facts right,you need to be connected for google not ovi,i have both ie on my htc and n97 and while they are both excellent ovi is better it is as simple as that..........
Nokia has free included speed cameras, and traffic is not a chargeable extra. However the UK/Spain traffic stopped working as Nokia changed it's data provider & it won't be resolved until the next Maps release.
It's a nice review, and he did say that it was "unscientific", but as far as I'm concerned the fact that I can download detailed street maps for all over the world on my home pc broadband with OVI and save them on my n95-8gb is a massive advantage. Whether in Italy or South Africa, I can disable any network connection, to avoid roaming charges, and still navigate fine using the built-in GPS and stored maps and other info (restaurants, petrol stations etc). Very convenient, and all for free - google is NOT free when you're abroad paying exorbitant roaming charges to download maps & data.
The review could use an edit to reflect this.
"The weak spot of both Ovi Maps and Navigation is the reliance on wireless data connectivity to download maps and other data."
That is bullshit. The very fact that one can DOWNLOAD the maps beforehand is the sole reason I won't switch away from Nokia. I've been downloading the maps to my old E70 few years already.
This is extremely handy when traveling in other country as you do NOT want to connect to internet using those roaming charges.
I'm not familiar with latest models of Nokia but if you can just connect using that crappy Nokia PC Connectivity suite then it should be as simple as downloading the maps.
The weak spot of both Ovi Maps and Navigation is the reliance on wireless data connectivity to download maps and other data. Completely wrong!
Ovi map store it's MAP in the phone so therefore it does not rely on the data connection. OVI map will work standalone without data plan. I don't even know if OVI Map will work just relying on data connection without storing the map in the phone first. I doubt if the reviewer ever uses the OVI map. It seem it is a copy and paste from another idiot reviewer.
How can you class this "review" as a review. To review something is to look at the features and benefits and make a concerted attempt to show them subjectively.
You have missed masses of features or claimed there are not even there when they are!!
I have an old Ovi Maps and I have Speed Camera Alerts. Do your bloody homework next time!
"The weak spot of both Ovi Maps and Navigation is the reliance on wireless data connectivity to download maps and other data." ... Completely wrong. I keep OVI maps of the UK, Ireland, Spain and the western dpeartments of France pre-loaded on my Nokia. Whenever I'm outside my home country I disable telephone access completely so that I don't incur roaming charges. I can pre-load OVI maps for as many other countries as I wish whenenever I like. Also pre-loaded are POIs like petrol stations, hotels, museums etc. For me avoiding roaming charges is a huge advantage over Google, although I'm not sure Google even have maps for most countries.
The author is absolutely clueless when it comes to Ovi maps. I seriously doubt if he did really use it.
[quote]Google and Nokia may look to bundle some basic, high level map data on supporting devices' removable storage.[/quote]
uh... Ovi maps on my nokia e72 already stores maps for the country/countries you choose on the memory card. No need for wireless or 3G for basic navigation. Am I missing some point here?
I thought that one of the big selling points of OVI Maps was that all of the map data is pre-loaded onto the phone, so that there's no need to download any extra data via Wireless?