With travel season in full swing, I got down to evaluating free GPS software for my 8820. I have recently installed 4.5, so was left with no choice but to install telenav. That was the only backdoor I had to unlocking the GPS on my device. AT&T Maps Trial version got installed instead.
AT&T Maps
It seemed promising. I got down to plotting my course and clicked on Drive To and entered my destination. I then got to select the origin. Could not find an option to select My Current Location anywhere. This was strange. Searched through all the menus, but could not figure out how to specify my current GPS location. Went outside, just in case GPS was not available, but no luck. The only location specific information provided was the weather. I can look outside the window and figure that out. I needed to upgrade to Telenav GPS Navigator.
I gave up in A&T Maps.
There is of course Google Maps and Yahoo Maps. Both are pretty good, but lack speech based directions. Yahoo Maps on 4.5 is missing menus, hence navigating through the software using keys is a hit or a miss. Yahoo Maps can recalculate a route, while Google Maps cannot.
I then installed the Co-Pilot 6 month free trial software. It is a decent application, though the UI needs a little finishing. It has voice turn-by-turn directions (without street names). It recalculates routes in a decent time. Sometimes it takes a long time for it to determine GPS coordinates and occasionally get the "No Response from server" error.
I then tried Nav4All. I was not sure about this free software, but on download, I really amazed at the amount of functionality packed in. The user interface at first glance does not look appealing, but is amazingly functional.
The address input could be more efficient, without having to provide the country every time, but it has so many features not even available in most standalone GPS Navigation systems.
Routing is pretty good and is based on the 9 driving styles (shortest rout, no highways,etc). It recalculates in good time and has voice turn-by-turn directions (without street names). The directions also include the lane assists and speed alerts.
One can flag (tag) locations and there is an option to mark your parking spot, a handy tool in big unfamiliar parking spaces and especially if the car you drive is also driven by million others.
The UI has a day and night mode for better readability which it automatically determines . It defaults to the safety view, with big arrows and text to be easily viewable while driving. Its plan route is awesome, where it allows one to plan ahead, by viewing all alternatives and demoing through the route.
It's speed limit alerts would also be very useful, especially on unfamiliar roads. There are few other options that make this a really great application.
One issue I had, (it may be any issue with the processing power of my blackberry) was that when I was also listening to podcast, there was a delay in catching up on my current location and recalculating the routes, which resulted in me sightseeing places that I had never been to.
All these apps have poor POI's, but having Google and Google Maps on the blackberry makes up for it.
I have also noticed that Yahoo Maps are more current than others, but unfortunately is difficult to use.
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5 comments:
Sounds interesting..i have installed Garmin trial version on my 8820 but it doesn't work for some reason..i will try nav4all and see if i can use it.
Are there any special settings that should be taken care of while running GPS software on your BB 8820?
I have since switched to the Bold, but I do not remember doing anything special to run Nav4All on the 8820.
Does Nav4all require a data plan? this is my personal blackberry i haven't got a data plan yet.
Yes, a data plan is needed. The directions are downloaded. Luckily for me, my data plan is paid for by my employer.
I do not know of any vendor who loads maps from the micro sd card. You will have better luck with a windows mobile device.
Also GPS on a blackberry is still for enthusiasts as the horse power and user interface are still sub par.
For regular use or on longer drives, in my opinion, you are better off with using a $150-$200 GPS devices. Telenav on blackberry comes pretty close, but can be expensive.
Keep an lookout on the following site for updates on GPS on Blackberry.
http://home.comcast.net/~tamsterra/OP/Blackberry_GPS.htm
Great blog.
I own both the Nuvi 660 and the 760, I'm writing this review for people having trouble deciding between the two as the price difference between the two products at the time of this review is about 100 dollars. I'm not going to focus on the feature differences, as that information can be easily obtained from specifications and online reviews. The 660 was a fine product back in 2005-2006, but the new 760 outdoes the 660 in practically everything, but there are some key usability fixes that make the 760 a better buy for the frequent user.
http://tinyurl.com/gnuvi760
1. 760 has much better fonts for street names than the 660. This may seem like a trivial update to some, but the 760's fonts greatly improve visibility. The 660 uses all capitalized text for street names on the map, and the font is incredibly cartoonish and unaligned, something like the scribbling Comic Sans font on the PC. The 760 uses your standard Verdana-like font with street names in capitalized and lowercase letters. The fonts on the 760 are smaller, cleaner and surprisingly much easier to read while driving. The maps end up looking professional, and not some cartoony children's video game.
2. 760 has better rendering in 3D map mode than the 660. In the 660 when you are zoomed in under 3D map mode, the roads close to your car are displayed incredibly large, so large that they run into other roads, making the zoom function essentially kind of useless for dense roads. The 760 does not oversize your roads just because you zoomed in to view smaller roads in detail. This fix is very nice for those who drive in places with dense roadways, like New York City.
3. No antenna on the 760 makes hooking up your Nuvi to the cradle one step easier. On the 660 you need to flip up the antenna before attaching the cradle. For people who park their cars on the street overnight, removing the GPS from the cradle for storage in the console or glove compartment is a must, and it's a lot easier hooking up the 760 to the cradle than the 660. It's hard to aim the 660 to its cradle in the dark as you have to align both the bottom edge and the charge port under the antenna. In the 760, the charge port is directly on the bottom of the unit; you can attach it to the cradle with one hand in the dark easily on the 760.
4. It takes the 660 a good 45 seconds on average (sometimes longer than 2 minutes) after boot up to locate the satellite on a cold start. If you have firmware 2.6 installed on the 760, the satellite acquisition time after boot up is between 10-20 seconds. After the firmware update, my 760 also holds a stronger lock to the satellites than my 660, I can get satellite lock inside my house with the 760, whereas I can't get a lock with my 660 (adjusting the antenna does very little).
5. The ability to set multiple ad hoc viapoints on the 760 means it's a lot easier creating alternate routes (very handy to avoid a specific interstate or a high traffic road). Whereas the 660 gives you just one viapoint.
UPDATE: This GPS is currently on sale at Amazon… now is your chance to buy one, if you haven’t already. You can find the product page here:
http://tinyurl.com/gnuvi760
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