[noidea]

This thread is a treasure trove of information. And there are such experts here, that quite a bit of the information is Greek and Latin for me.

From what I could gather ( from the little that I could understand)-
it is no use buying a dedicated GPS navigator if you have a smart phone with or without a dedicated GPS chip. Is that right?

[ntomer]

Originally Posted by noidea

This thread is a treasure trove of information. And there are such experts here, that quite a bit of the information is Greek and Latin for me.

From what I could gather ( from the little that I could understand)-
it is no use buying a dedicated GPS navigator if you have a smart phone with or without a dedicated GPS chip. Is that right?

A GPS received is must for the phone to be used as a navigator.

P.S. I have Sygic (with MMI maps) in my Dell Streak; but ever since Google Maps began providing navigation, I haven't used Sygic even once.

[shankar.balan]

I bought Sygic for my iPhone. I have given away my Garmin SatNav device to my Dad for his use.
Now Ive also downloaded GoogleMaps.
The thing is that it will always be better to have a map system which directly works from the device rather than one which is dependent on Cellphone signals.
Hence, in India I think its ok to use the phone and anyway in most places in India one can stop and ask.
Abroad the game changes completely so whenever I travel in a rental car, I would always pay extra and get a local TomTom or something - it would be rather difficult without that!

[DieselFan]

Current day google maps and navigation doesn't depend on cell phone signals at all. You need wifi at your hotel and plan your trip in advance and download the area maps on to your phones beforehand so that the same can be used without network.

[durgaprasan]

Hi,
I bought Sygic navigation that uses Map my India software and maps, and the next month Google started its navigation service. I use both on my phone, with the phone obviously connected to the charger all the time while driving. The following are my observations:

1) Sygic menu is more complex and unhelpful. For example in Kerala, for a simple address, i have to go to navigate> district>street>place of interest. Very often the street name is unknown, or place of interest is not available in sygic maps. Its quite frustrating.
2) Google navigation is more likely to find even remote places. I conduct various medical camps in remote areas, and google navigation was accurately able to find the places within 30m accuracy. Places Sygic wasnt aware of.
3) What i dont like about both maps is that they arent updated enough, especially regarding new roads and overbridges. So they give wrong info when you approach newly constructed overbridges, making you lose your way.
4) Google is more likely to provide an alternative route, especially faster than Sygic in doing so, in case you miss the route, or you want to take an alternative route by yourself. Sygic keeps asking you to take a U turn, till you reach a major road, when it finally corrects itself.
5) The voice navigation of Sygic is clearer, and easily understandable. However, I have got used to the navigation of google now, so that may be an individual choice.
6) As far as internet penetration is concerned, i almost never found it difficult to use google, even in remote areas. Never got lost because of lack of signals.
7) With both applications, i realised your personal judgement is important. They can both lead you to narrow roads which are not motorable.

Overall, Google has been less likely to frustrate me, even though i try to use Map my India Sygic as far as possible(since i paid money for it ). I would say dont buy any paid navigation tool if Google navigation works for your smartphone. Google maps arent very useful, but Google navigation is the way to go. Its good.

Durga Prasan

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by DieselFan

Current day google maps and navigation doesn't depend on cell phone signals at all. You need wifi at your hotel and plan your trip in advance and download the area maps on to your phones beforehand so that the same can be used without network.

Map download can be over WIFI. But when you are on the road, and you want "turn by turn navigation" you need data connection.
Route computation is done on the google servers and not on the phone itself. So if any recalculation etc., is needed, it will not happen without data connection,

[T1000]

Some more experiences on the quality of map data.

1. While travelling on highways, Most of the by-pass roads are not mapped in GPS devices, For ex, when you travel from Mumbai to bangalore. Satguide takes you inside every small towns along the highways while you have bypass roads which exists for years.
Google maps scores a point high in this regard,
Google routing algorithm identifies and treats bypass roads differently.

2. In GPS devices, Marine drive is listed under "road junctions". where as a new user would be looking for marine drive under tourist spot and would not find it.
Google search algorithm is of great help in identifying POIs quickly

3. Spotting villages & towns in gps devices is a pain. User navigation is bit clumpy in these devices, but then one gets used to it over a period of time

4. Another intersting experience. A drive from Chembur to Hardrock cafe at worli.
a. Destination was fixed as Hardrock cafe at worli in Satguide
b. Satguide took us to a defunt mill somewhere near worli, we lost our way
c. Switched to google maps and it gave a route which took us through narrow bylanes.
d. we continued driving to see where its taking us
e. we reached a slum, the road was so narrow , only one car could go and both sides were small houses and we continued driving. 400mts ahead we could see a main road in the map.
f. we got stuck in the narrow lane, the road was blocked by a santro and couple of bikes.
h. we had to reverse for another 500mts and took human help to reach our destination :-)

When you are mapping tens of thousands of POI's in a map, there is always a chance for error.
Map data is still evolving and it will take sometime to get 100% reliable data

5. One small error in routing can mislead you, I use satguide device
whenever i return from matheran or malshej side to mumbai , the route shows a distance of 450+kms where as the actual distance is hardly 100kms. i have observed this in this particular segment of the highway.

Has anyone come across similar issues?

Couple of errors makes you loose faith on the device, so its always advisable to use back up options like googlemaps, till this space evolves.

[ottocycle]

Originally Posted by binand

On the other hand, with MMI you have to purchase updates. Cost is here.

Instead of purchasing MMI maps from their site. It somebody buys from Sygic (since we are comparing the mobile maps here), it's one time cost only (~1400 Rs). The map updates are free for life time. I myself have received map updated 2 times till now.

[desidino]

Folks with Nokia smart phones can try Nokia Drive. I haven't tried it in India. But have downloaded India map which takes around 500 MB of space.

Nokia Drive supports offline turn by turn voice navigation without needing a data connection.

There is a caveat though. For some reason, during offline search, Nokia Drive does not return some destinations in search results even though they are there in the map. For example, I was not able to search for a particular mall while I was on the road. When I came back home and searched through Wifi, the mall was there in the search results and I added it to the favorites.

So, before you leave home or any other Wifi place, make sure to search for possible destinations and set them as favorites.

[dutta_d1]

Originally Posted by noidea

This thread is a treasure trove of information. And there are such experts here, that quite a bit of the information is Greek and Latin for me.

From what I could gather ( from the little that I could understand)-
it is no use buying a dedicated GPS navigator if you have a smart phone with or without a dedicated GPS chip. Is that right?

Either you can buy a smartphone with built in GPS (Almost all phones costing above 5K comes with one nowadays) or if you have an older one with no built in GPS but it runs the Sygic ore Google Maps software, you may be able to use a dedicated Bluetooth GPS receiver.

Either way, it is no more necessary to invest in a dedicated GPS device for a car nowadays.

[bobbafett]

Is there a specific difference in signal quality and GPS lock between dedicated GPS device and a smartphone with lets say MMI maps loaded on it?

For me, the biggest difference between a dedicated GPS device and a smartphone solution with pre-loaded maps is the battery life - The phones will offer better battery life compared to dedicated GPS devices that max out at 2 hours. So those of us who do not want wire clutter and also do not need constant GPS navigation (for eg on long drives, once you are on the main highway, you do not really need navigation, its only once you near the towns that navigation becomes cruicial) phone actually makes more sense. Thats my theory anyways, but having had no experience of either a GPS PND or a smartphone preloaded maps GPS, I have no idea of the quality of the GPS navigation between the two.

For verification, cross checking and POI search one can always use google maps, but the problem with Gmaps is the quailty of 3G networks - which is always a big limitation.

[Fillmore]

You can help Google make the India maps better by participating in the Mapathon India 2013 initiative.

Attractive gifts too

https://www.google.com/mapmaker/mapathon/india2013/

[msdivy]

Originally Posted by T1000

Vehicle entertainment/navigation systems and the glass project are going after two different markets.

Google Glass thread: http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/gadget...gle-glass.html

Check the video at 1:03.

[ottocycle]

Originally Posted by Fillmore

You can help Google make the India maps better by participating in the Mapathon India 2013 initiative.

Attractive gifts too

https://www.google.com/mapmaker/mapathon/india2013/

This is a very good initiative by Google. Time for me to contribute more towards improving the google maps. Already did 10 edits today to become Novice mapper. They are not counting my past edits for the competition.

[SKavuri]

Originally Posted by desidino

Folks with Nokia smart phones can try Nokia Drive. I haven't tried it in India. But have downloaded India map which takes around 500 MB of space.

Nokia Drive supports offline turn by turn voice navigation without needing a data connection.

There is a caveat though. For some reason, during offline search, Nokia Drive does not return some destinations in search results even though they are there in the map. For example, I was not able to search for a particular mall while I was on the road. When I came back home and searched through Wifi, the mall was there in the search results and I added it to the favorites.

So, before you leave home or any other Wifi place, make sure to search for possible destinations and set them as favorites.

My experience in navigation:

I bought a LG-Optimus-One 2 years ago and it came with a pre-loaded application called N-Drive. Maps of one country are free and obviously I selected India and downloaded the maps. If I remember right (it was 2 years ago!), it was about 150MB of download via wi-fi.

It is excellent as far as navigational features are concerned : rerouting, voice guidance, etc. etc. and the maps and GPS are very very accurate.

But when compared to Google, the amount of detail is less - in terms of smaller land marks, etc. It didn't bother me because I used it mostly for long distance and inter-city travel.

Since the maps are offline and I have GPS on the phone, no data connection is required for navigation. I used N-Drive extensively in southern India and I am happy with it.

I also have an iPhone 3G with google maps, but in India, at some places the data connection gets lost so the navigation will be stuck. I prefered my LG over iPhone for highway navigation.

N-Drive application updates with latest maps and features whenever I connect to google-play, so I am always with the latest data.

I used a car charger since GPS drains the phone battery faster.

I am sure there are many such applications available in the market. Google maps has its advantage in detail but the advantage with apps like N-Drive is no-data connection is required.

Once thing I noticed with my phone is that when I switch on the GPS, it takes like 10-15 minutes to identify the location. So I made it a habit to switch it on much before I start the car. Do the others have a similar lag or the technology caught up in the last 2 years?