I had the chance to try out Google’s full SatNav with Google Maps on the HTC Desire and thought I would do a write up on how well Google Maps Navigation compares. Firstly I should make a note that Google Maps Navigation (Beta) is free on the android platform to all Android OS 2.1 customers and I tested this on the new HTC Desire running Android OS 2.1 with Sense UI.
There are currently two types of navigation systems out on the market today, one is called onboard and one is called offboard. Onboard basically means that the maps are installed to the phone memory or SD card. Offboard which is what Google are using doesn’t install maps at all but downloads them over an active 3G data connection whilst you drive. There’s varying arguments to which is best, e.g. the overall suggestion is that offboard maps should be more up to date as they’re on a server where as onboard don’t get updated possibly as often depending on the provider, also with offboard if you go out of cell phone coverage then you can be stuck because you can’t download the maps you need to continue your journey.
Driving for 1h 45 mins, Google did drive me to my destination (door to door) but I did receive frequent GPS drop outs on the HTC Desire which I hadn’t previously on the same route, same day using CoPilot SatNav. I don’t believe the GPS dropouts were related to GPS coverage in the area or problems in receiving a signal locally as I had 3x other devices in car and the GPS dropouts were for around 10 mins at a time on the HTC Desire but the other 3x devices suffered no GPS dropouts whatsoever. This led me to believe that Google might be experiencing problems when they can’t download a map or route you possibly.
The google voice announcements are TTS (Text To Speech) which read out full street names which is good. So you get something like “Turn left onto Southampton Row”. Unfortunately with all TTS engines on mobile devices the TTS engines are much lower volume than regular pre-recorded audio which can be sampled and enhanced to increase the volume. For me whilst I was listening to the car stereo (Leo Laporte podcast from my iPhone) I was having great difficulty hearing the audio and had to keep turning the car stereo down every time I was getting close to a junction or turn so I could hear the audio. The big problem I hit was that the TTS voices strung out the audio. Although it was great to hear the long road names, in most cases the first audio instruction came too late which meant the TTS didn’t complete talking until after I had made my turn. This mean if I didn’t know where I was and relying completely on the SatNav then Google would have had me driving in circles because I would keep missing my turns. Ultimately on a long trip and having to get to my destination by a particular time would have had me use more petrol/gas and stressed me out massively by the time I reached my destination, more importantly I would most likely be late for my meeting.
Google street view is a nice touch and although I really like it I’m a little torn by it as I equally found it very distracting. I really only think it’s useful for when you are close to your destination and for the most part it didn’t show me Street View when I was driving. The distracting part is that if you’re driving along and Street View does pop up you see cars on the Street View that aren’t actually in front of you. I’d much prefer to have seen a live feed from the in-built camera and triangulating my position with the GPS and overlaying something on the camera feed that showed me where the location was I was driving to.
Google maps is a free alternative to a paid navigation system, and there’s the old saying as there’s no such thing as a free lunch. In this case there is, but Google provides a very basic navigation. Google don’t, have the more enhanced services like you would see on a full blown navigation system on the same device, e.g. If you compared it to say CoPilot Live v8 then Google are missing ClearTurn junction screens, Lane Assistance, Safety Camera notification, Traffic Avoidance notification, navigate to Favourites, no driver safety screens, no live tracking or live messaging (being able to track the device from another computer over the internet), no fuel prices, no roadside assistance, no intelligent re-routing and much more…
What google does have is free basic navigation with in theory the latest update maps that stay updated as they kind of do on http://maps.google.com.
Can Google completely replace the need for a full blown SatNav? In my opinion no, not at this moment in time. If you are someone that refuse to pay a penny for apps or won’t shell out up to £28 on a full blown SatNav like CoPilot (which isn’t going to break the bank) then you will probably persevere with Google and be somewhat happy with it. If you want the full enhanced features or want an onboard system to ensure if you go out of cell coverage that you can still navigate then you will want to pay te money for a system lime CoPilot.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not bashing Google here. What Google have done is great and is a good start for free navigation and for some it will be great to have. I can see for some if you have traveled to another country and need maps quickly and don’t have maps on your full blown SatNav, then this would be a great addition. However, although offboard navigation can be a huge plus to keep the maps current and up to date, one of the big drawbacks is that you are having to download maps over 3g. If you are in another country you can easily rack up a GPRS/3G bill of over £50 in 3g roaming charges which would see you paying double what a regular SatNav would cost on your phone for a single excursion.
For me, I will be using Google maps and testing it more, especially in hard to reach areas where I will have flakey 3G coverage to see how good/bad it performs but with the limitations it has, it’ll be more as a backup if I want to check something, I think I would become very stressed out with keep missing the turns I had to take.
Filed under: Android, HTC, SatNav
