Best GPS?

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Aside from the standard Google Maps, are there any good GPS systems to go along with this phone? Should I just rely on Google Maps?

Google Maps should come with the built in Navigation and it works very well IMHO.

Originally Posted by unclespoon

Google Maps should come with the built in Navigation and it works very well IMHO.

Pre-render? Can you have satellite view pre-rendered?

I spent the day driving around in a roughly 25 miles radius, to put the gps of the device to the test. I used google maps as it came pre-installed on the phone and this was my first full day with it.

Gps works as a gps, and functions even with wireless and cellular service disabled. (duh, but had to check it wasn't getting location via 4G)

Worked extremely well, and the radius to my location only raised above 10 meters a few times. Generally speaking I feel comfortable in saying it'll peg the phone to 10 meters through gps alone pretty consistently.

This was at speed in a vehicle, and on foot through parking lots and such. Even though it said to within 10 meters, I found that on foot it pegged the phone to about 3 feet. (1 meter) I could tell this by coming to and crossing roads marked on the map, and being zoomed in gauging how far that road actually was in front of me)

Using GPS only for location services, I lost reception whenever I entered a building, but sometimes it would find it again. Some of the buildings I walked into have enough electrical interference that cell phones don't get reception, so it was a good run of places to test it.

I got a handful of errands run in the process, so it was a pretty win situation.

For an out of the box solution, i'm impressed. It did much better then my year and a half old bottom of the line garmin nuvi 255w. Granted I bought that as the cheapest one I could find at the time, so it's no surprise this phone has a much more advanced gps functionality.

One of the reasons I purchased this device was to replace my GPS. When I bought the GPS unit I wasn't sure it would be worth the money at the time. Since then i've capitalized on having it by getting a job that entails a lot of running around to different locations, and a GPS unit is a necessity for the work. I've been looking to get a better GPS unit then a low end model for a while now.

I'm definitely on the lookout for other GPS capable map apps to use for navigation - what's better and why?

I'm excited to finally try Satellite imagery on my next trip. Most coverage areas certainly cover the traveled highways, so it should be very interesting.


Now if I can just find that pesky windshield mount!

After a few days of heavy usage, i'll say that using google maps in satellite view for gps navigation in a vehicle absolutely chews through battery power.

Not too bad with regular map view.

Also, more time spent on foot gets me to reasonably often within 4 meters on foot in the more populated areas.

I've been intentionally not using my car charger while doing all my running around, it's giving me a good guage of how much battery it eats. Car charger is a necessity if using satellite view.

Edit:

Is there any way to download the google map database for offline browsing? I know you can pre-cache map data using the google labs option in the maps app, but can I download something like my state, for instance, and access it offline?

Anyone know if it works in flight or what the maximum altitude might be?