Google's Free Satnav Outperforms TomTom 242
Barence writes "A real-world road test of several different satnav systems has found that the free Google Maps Navigation outperformed TomTom's premium GPS unit. PC Pro put the satnavs through four different real-world tests, covering country roads, inner-city traffic and motorway driving. The Google satnav finished the four tests more than half an hour ahead of the top of the range TomTom Go 950 Live. 'For those in rural areas or people who spend hours in their car every day, we believe the investment in a dedicated satnav device or software will still pay off,' PC Pro concludes. 'But for the recreational user, it's amazing what you can get for free.'"
Re:Not Free (Score:5, Informative)
It didn't exist when I bought my G1. Now I have it. I'd call that 'free'.
Granted, I updated the firmware manually on my G1 and stock G1's may not have it.
The problem is.. (Score:5, Informative)
Is that Google's solution is not free because it requires a data connection on your phone. When traveling in foreign countries this is usually prohibitively expensive.
With TomTom you can purchase foreign maps and use them without "per use" data charges.
Actually, Nokia likely has the best solution in this regard - they give you free maps/navigation on your own phone (so nothing to purchase) but you can pick the countries and pre-load their maps on your phone. You then do not need an active data connection to navigate.
For what it's worth - TomTom and other standalone makers are probably the losers in this. These devices are consolidating and phone manufacturers are emerging as winners.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, that depends where you're driving.
Google Navigation does cache images of the entire route -- but this can become problematic if you deviated from the planned route.
Maybe, maybe not (Score:4, Informative)
My Droid does have a windshield mount, but its navigation UI needs a lot of help:
- small buttons
- not as responsive as tomtom
- no way to route around traffic delays
- requires a data connection (yes, there are a few places in the US that doesn't have good data service)
- useless if you get an incoming call or want to make an outbound call
- no way of storing favorites (with three taps I can find my way home or get a list of favorites on my tomtom)
That's not to say that Google Navigation is really poor. I like having constantly updated maps and more timely traffic information, and I'd prefer to have only one device on my windshield, but until those above problems get fixed, I'll keep my TomTom.
Re:The problem is.. (Score:4, Informative)
The country maps cost extra, often quite a lot extra, and become outdated fairly quickly.. If you aren't planning on spending a lot of time in a specific country then the cost of roaming data might actually be less than buying the maps..
And if you are planning to stay somewhere a long time, you could always buy a local prepaid sim for much cheaper data access, and these will usually be available in the airport or wherever else you enter the country.
Totally agree (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what? (Score:4, Informative)
Uh, no. 15A at 12v isn't the same as 15A at 110v.
15A at 12v is only 180 watts of power.
15A at 110v is 1650 watts of power.
However, you're correct, 180 watts is certainly far more than any cell phone uses, the GP post is clearly wrong. Cell phone batteries are typically something like a max of 1 amp hour at 3.2 volts. If the phone exceeded a 10A (conservative) at 12v draw, even in a worst case scenario where they are using an analog regulator to drop it to 5V charging current and therefore only harvesting 10A at 5V, that would mean that the phone could only run for a maximum of 6 minutes on a fully charged internal battery doing 3G. Actually it wouldn't work at all, because if you tried to draw 10 amps out of a 1 amp hour LiIon battery, it'd catch fire (or more likely, just pop a polyswitch and shut down your phone).
Re:Well (Score:5, Informative)
I was going to say something exactly along these lines.
I do a lot of driving for work, all over Ontario (Canada). I use a Tomtom 630 (previously had a 720) for most of my navigation. I update regularly and have a yearly map subscription to keep up-to-date with changing roads and speeds.
What's the difference? My Tomtom would never send me down a major street in Toronto during rush hour. Why not? Because it has average speeds for each road stored in the map data based on day of week and time of day. It knows that this road is faster on average than this other road at this time of day. With the FM antenna, I also get the live traffic updates as I pass through relevant areas.
On several occasions I've plugged the same destination into my Tomtom and my Android phone. The navigation directions on my Tomtom are almost always smarter. On rare occasion, Google takes a slightly shorter-by-optimal-speed route, but the actual time to destination is usually what the Tomtom predicted instead. In general I find the Tomtom's algorithms much more intelligent (although the 720 was much dumber, not having average road-speeds).
Re:what? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:what? (Score:3, Informative)
Globally not quite so rosy (Score:2, Informative)
Like the Android Market purchasing, Google Maps navigation doesn't work globally yet.
So, until Google Maps works also in all the countries on Earth I wouldn't say anything about outperforming a dedicated navigator that will navigate you anywhere for which location you have the maps in the device.
Re:Totally agree (Score:3, Informative)
A free (OSM-based) navigation software example is CycleStreets [cyclestreets.net], which uses OSM's data to provide cycle routes.
Random example journey [cyclestreets.net], showing the three options (fast, balanced, quiet), route profile (hills), turn-by-turn navigation, etc.
I think there's an Android app, but I haven't used it yet.
Navit! (Score:3, Informative)
Get Navit. OSM and open source software all downloaded on the phone FTW