Best GPS Software?

[alylea]

Does anyone have any suggestions from first hand experience? I have a GlobalSat BT-359 from my soon to be departed Nokia e61.

[Hyperbaric]

I've tried a few shareware apps for 'off road' stuff, hilwalking, etc. Useful for limited applications.

For road navigation.. Tomtom all the way for me :) Now using Navigator 6 with the Tomtom BT GPS. Its not the cheapest, but there are good deals out there and it works well.

[jac33au]

I currently use tomtom6 but have used destinator in the past and its my prefered. This is in australia and the tomtom maps are not as detailed but they are more customizable with different voices and point of intererst etc. i believe the maps are done from local providers so tomtom for the states might be better.

[kwan]

Has anyone had any delay when intially starting TomTom 6?
I have TomTom 5.xx and it takes about a minute or more to load up.
Seems like iGuidance does the same (according to someone).

[alylea]

I'm going to try Wayfinder on a 5 day free trial for a project I have. I'll post results next week.

[cpz21]

iNav iGuidance in my opinion

[yvrRome]

I've tried TomTom, iGuidance and iGo and my favorite by far is iGo.

[RemE]

Do you have a link to iGo and by chance have you tried it on a Hermes running WM6. I'm a long iGuidance user, like it alot, but right now it has several annoying issues with WM6 that need to be patched and currently there's no timeline on when iNav will fix it. I'd like to give iGo a Go :)

[Acuum2]

I use TomTom for road navigatoin and Anquet for off road (walking, and cycling)

Anquet is pricy! but it has OS mapping available for the entire UK, (and i believe its this OS map data thats has enforced the high price. most of the the UK is at 1/25k Which is idea for walking, (you can see trees marked and field boundrys.

The mapping app for the PPC in the early version was poor but the newer stuff is pretty good.

That said i have recently installed Gmaps. Google Maps free PPC app, if your in a 3G area its really quite fast to load, and being able to see satalite images (if the res is good enough where you are) is pretty cool. Driving in my car with it drawing Satalite photos clear enough to see cars on makes you feel like Jack Bower!

Gmaps will do point to point navigation too, and in the US it can pick up traffic infomation.

[alylea]

So I tried the free 5 day Wayfinder download. Here's how I see it:

1: The download was easy but getting it to work was another thing. 3 installs and 2 uninstalls later it came up.

2: You need to authenticate prior to first use. Authentication took about 5 attempts including having to ask for the code from tech support which delayed thing 24hrs. The code is supposed to be included according to the Readme but it wasn't. The code sent didn’t work and I finally authenticated when the software asked permission to do so by sending an sms to their server.

3. This application requires an internet connection to download maps, which means that if your connection is slow, good luck. If you loose the connection due to drop out or no service you are screwed. If you loose connection, you get a pop-up error message and the software seems to be no longer useable because you close the message but it keeps returning. The only option is to close the application.

4: The accuracy was good and the auto corrections worked well on a 32 mile drive home. I purposely took a different route to see how it would respond and I must say it reacted quickly and accurately.

5: The task bar is at the top of the screen and is very large, too large in fact. I couldn’t find a way to reduce the size or minimize it.

6: I couldn't get the screen zoom to show me the entire route. It wasn't as if I was going cross country, it was only 32 miles.

7: The search function worked very well. My office is in a good sized city but my home is almost in the middle of no where. It found both locations with no problem the first time. That's an advantage of an on-line service.

Finally, I worked with Rt66 on a Nokia e61 for a project. Rt66 supplies all of the maps in the application so you don't need to be on-line at all which is a good thing. Rt66 also plots your course with a line overlayed on the map. Wayfinder doesn’t. Rt66 seemed to have some quirks of its own but overall was a much more useable product.

The bottom line is that if you have a good signal all the time you are fine. Cingular does not have 100% coverage nationwide which means you may run into problems planning routes and using the system if you are in a low or no signal area. I think I'll stick to a maps-on-board program.

Lyle

[alylea]

So I tried the free 5 day Wayfinder download. Here's how I see it:

1: The download was easy but getting it to work was another thing. 3 installs and 2 uninstalls later it finally came up.

2: You need to authenticate prior to first use. Authentication took about 5 attempts including having to ask for the code from tech support which delayed thing 24hrs. The code is supposed to be included according to the Readme but it wasn't. The code sent didn’t work and I finally authenticated when the software asked permission to do so by sending an sms to their server.

3. This application requires an internet connection to download maps, which means that if your connection is slow, good luck. If you loose the connection due to drop out or no service you are screwed. If you loose connection, you get a pop-up error message and the software seems to be no longer useable because you close the message but it keeps returning. The only option is to close the application.

4: The search function worked very well. My office is in a good sized city but my home is almost in the middle of no where. It found both locations with no problem the first time. That's an advantage of an on-line service.


5: The accuracy was good and the auto corrections worked well on a 32 mile drive home. I purposely took a different route to see how it would respond and I must say it reacted quickly and accurately.

6: The task bar is at the top of the screen and is very large, too large in fact. I couldn’t find a way to reduce the size or minimize it.

7: I couldn't get the screen zoom to show me the entire route. It wasn't as if I was going cross country, it was only 32 miles.

Finally, I previously worked with Rt66 on a Nokia e61 for a work related project. Rt66 supplies all of the maps in the application so you don't need to be on-line at all which is a good thing. Rt66 also plots your course with a line overlayed on the map which I like. Wayfinder doesn’t. Rt66 seemed to have some quirks of its own but overall was a much more useable product. Would I go back to Rt66? Maybe but I need to check out the other map on0board applications first.

The bottom line for Wayfinder is that if you have a good signal all the time you are fine. Cingular does not have 100% coverage nationwide which means you may run into problems planning routes and using the system if you are in a low or no signal area. I think I'll stick to a maps-on-board program.

Lyle

[yvrRome]

Do you have a link to iGo and by chance have you tried it on a Hermes running WM6. I'm a long iGuidance user, like it alot, but right now it has several annoying issues with WM6 that need to be patched and currently there's no timeline on when iNav will fix it. I'd like to give iGo a Go :)

I am running iGo on WM6 and it's flawless.

You can buy iGo here: http://www.i-go.com/en/

[Hyperbaric]

Has anyone had any delay when intially starting TomTom 6?
I have TomTom 5.xx and it takes about a minute or more to load up.
Seems like iGuidance does the same (according to someone).

I have had start-up freezes with Tomtom, but seems fine at the moment. I am using Black 3.0 ROM.

[bodypilot]

Has anyone had any delay when intially starting TomTom 6?
I have TomTom 5.xx and it takes about a minute or more to load up.
Seems like iGuidance does the same (according to someone).

I had the same problem with TomTom 5 and Windows Mobile 5. When I upgraded the phone to Windows Mobile 6 TomTom ran super fast.

FYI TomTom 6 is even faster!~~

[aximfan]

I tried TomTom6 for my trip down to New york, and Atlantic City all I can say its the best GPS software I've used period

it was paired it with i.Trek M5 GPS receiver

[.VIBE]

I use tomtom 6.03 on LVSW's WM6 ROM. in a word, WOW! awesome program, fast, and optimised for PDA use while driving.

[stewcp]

You can buy iGo here: http://www.i-go.com/en/

Where... I can't see any prices or buy now links???!!!!! :confused:

[Wiper]

When it's about car navigation, I can recommend Tom Tom 6. I've tried Destinator, which I found more flexible, but the actual location dragged about 200meters so after I had driven past my exit did the arrow come to the spot.

Missed so many turns I ditched that POS.

I have used Route 66 on P910i, which is better than Destinator but doesn't give as much coverage of Finland as Tom tom 6.

[lajson]

Where... I can't see any prices or buy now links???!!!!! :confused:

Look at here

http://www.google.se/search?hl=sv&q=Buy+NavNGo&meta=

and the review of the iGO is here :

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/iGo2006.php

and also take a look at theirs forum for usable tips how to configure voice commands for your satisfaction :

http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=41654&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

[troyDoogle7]

Igo is def the best however it doesn't seem to work with wm6, goes really slow and eats up memory till you need to reset. Unfortunately I can't test it on my hermes as they don't do a microsd version.

I spoke to the tech guys there, who said that it worked, however I am not convinced as it still isn't on their list of compatible OS's.

So will adopt the wait and see.

Plus its locked to the card so sucks if you have more than one device, like I do.

[lajson]

Igo is def the best however it doesn't seem to work with wm6, goes really slow and eats up memory till you need to reset. Unfortunately I can't test it on my hermes as they don't do a microsd version.

I spoke to the tech guys there, who said that it worked, however I am not convinced as it still isn't on their list of compatible OS's.

So will adopt the wait and see.

Plus its locked to the card so sucks if you have more than one device, like I do.

I don't know the final WM6 but JJs black 2.5 can run iGO without a glich and you can copy the software from SD card to your micro SD. You don't even need to use all the maps if you don't have big storage card. I could run iGO on 128MB card with only using swedish maps for navigation. one can find planty of information on this mater on the web and I suggest you to search on the google.
The next version of the iGO is going to be killer application and I definitively
going to buy NavNGo when they going to release it.:D

[davidlleno]

you guys are lucky you get good GPS support in your countries. We do get GPS here but no map systems that support it in the Philippines. So you have the coordinates but you cant point at any map to plot it in. I've tried google maps but they dont have directional support even detailed maps in the phils, so does every other online maping system I know. :(

I go mounting climbing once in a while and I wouldnt trust my PPC's software to help me find my way around lush jungles. I have a life to go home to. hehe

[bapski]

you guys are lucky you get good GPS support in your countries. We do get GPS here but no map systems that support it in the Philippines. So you have the coordinates but you cant point at any map to plot it in. I've tried google maps but they dont have directional support even detailed maps in the phils, so does every other online maping system I know. :(

I go mounting climbing once in a while and I wouldnt trust my PPC's software to help me find my way around lush jungles. I have a life to go home to. hehe

hahahaha.... are you crazy? you might end up at an abu sayyaf's lair!! might as well use one of those handheld gps systems. thats what we used to use. . .

from bacolod.. and you?

[RemE]

Just thought I'd report that the new iGuidance v4.0 now fully supports WM6! I tested it out last night on a Cingular 8525 that is running WM6 (Black Majik), and it works great, no more abrupt program closes when touching the screen while driving, that occured with v3 and WM6.

The new text to speech engine works fine however, they still use the nice English woman's voice for the basic prompts, then when a road comes up where the TTS kicks in, the voice switches to a rough sounding woman (maybe an old smoker?). The overall effect is OK but a little odd/distracting to me.

I used to change a few sounds in the program files\iNav\snd folder to my preference, e.g. I changed the annoying "ding" (Mvr.wav) to now say "TurnPoint". Well the sound files are still there but are now sporting .spx extensions, seem to be smaller files now. Edit, there are audio converters (eg. Ease Audio Converter) that easily convert .wav to .spx so it's still easy to tweak a few sounds if desired.

The North America Edition, covers North America, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. All of this and the TTS engine now are all in one 1.3gig folder that you must copy onto the phone's microSD card, no more loader program for maps!

Overall I like it, I'd prefer that the major highways still use the original voice "turn on 5 north" vs the TTS, nice voice "turn on" then rough voice "CA 5 North" which as I mentioned is just a little off sounding. But the prog seems stable, minor changes in the data entry areas but very minor.


Edit, Here's a tip from GPSpassion, to now choose your speech options, Original Voice Only (non-TTS), All TTS, and the stock Mixed Mode (wav and TTS).

* Open your register editor

* Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\iNav\iGuidance

* Create a new DWORD Value

* Name it TTS

* Set the value to 0 to hear direction prompts consisting of only WAV

* Set the value to 1 to hear direction prompts consisting of WAV & TTS

* Set the value to 2 to hear direction prompts consisting of only TTS


0 = voice prompts as in older iGuidance versions (no street names)
1 = default voice prompts of iGuidance 4
2 = TTS (text-to-speech) used for the whole voice prompt (not just for street names)

I tried this, changed to All TTS and it's less distracting compared to the standard version where it's shifting between two different voices.

[ThaiM]

you guys are lucky you get good GPS support in your countries. We do get GPS here but no map systems that support it in the Philippines. So you have the coordinates but you cant point at any map to plot it in. I've tried google maps but they dont have directional support even detailed maps in the phils, so does every other online maping system I know. :(

I go mounting climbing once in a while and I wouldnt trust my PPC's software to help me find my way around lush jungles. I have a life to go home to. hehe

There's a mapping software where you can upload your own scanned map and it'll work with that. After you calibrate it....

[bapski]

Just thought I'd report that the new iGuidance v4.0 now fully supports WM6! I tested it out last night on a Cingular 8525 that is running WM6 (Black Majik), and it works great, no more abrupt program closes when touching the screen while driving, that occured with v3 and WM6.

The new text to speech engine works fine however, they still use the nice English woman's voice for the basic prompts, then when a road comes up where the TTS kicks in, the voice switches to a rough sounding woman (maybe an old smoker?). The overall effect is OK but a little odd/distracting to me.

I used to change a few sounds in the program files\iNav\snd folder to my preference, e.g. I changed the annoying "ding" (Mvr.wav) to now say "TurnPoint". Well the sound files are still there but are now sporting .spx extensions, seem to be smaller files now, but I'm not sure what to do to edit/change them now? Hopefully someone will figure a way.

The North America Edition, covers North America, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. All of this and the TTS engine now are all in one 1.3gig folder that you must copy onto the phone's microSD card, no more loader program for maps!

Overall I like it, I'd prefer that the major highways still use the original voice "turn on 5 north" vs the TTS, nice voice "turn on" then rough voice "CA 5 North" which as I mentioned is just a little off sounding. But the prog seems stable, minor changes in the data entry areas but very minor.


Edit, Here's a tip from GPSpassion, to now choose your speech options, Original Voice Only (non-TTS), All TTS, and the stock Mixed Mode (wav and TTS).

* Open your register editor

* Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\iNav\iGuidance

* Create a new DWORD Value

* Name it TTS

* Set the value to 0 to hear direction prompts consisting of only WAV

* Set the value to 1 to hear direction prompts consisting of WAV & TTS

* Set the value to 2 to hear direction prompts consisting of only TTS


0 = voice prompts as in older iGuidance versions (no street names)
1 = default voice prompts of iGuidance 4
2 = TTS (text-to-speech) used for the whole voice prompt (not just for street names)

I tried this, changed to All TTS and it's less distracting compared to the standard version where it's shifting between two different voices.

am planning to get this gps software too... mind telling me what gps reciever you are using?

thanks..

[walshieau]

im finding the new MioMap 3.2 and Destinator 7 stable... cant wait for TomTom7 though :D

[RemE]

I use several, my favorites are Holux, the GPSslim240 is TINY and very sensitive, I get 11 sats driving and 7 with it sitting in the middle of my living room! It's good for travel. I also use the Holux GR239 which is a small golfball sized unit that is a cigarette lighter plug-in device. I leave it plugged into a spare accy outlet in my company car, which auto connects to the 8525 when ever I'm in the car so the phone "acts" like it has imbedded GPS, very nice, no batteries to mess with.

I got them on Ebay for somewhere around $60 dollars.

[bapski]

only thing about the holux 240 is i dont think the battery is user replaceable?

was thinking of getting the Q818. any thoughts?