Nokia Drive on my Nokia Lumia 800 trouncing dedicated Sat Nav (TomTom)
Yesterday I had a 7-7 day of hospital placement followed by GP visits to get some patient contact.
In the afternoon, 6 pairs were sent off to various GPs in Blackburn, an area unfamiliar to us all and hence our minibus and their satnav.
I took out Nokia Drive just to see how far these places were, just typing out the post code and bam. Processed done. What was interesting to see around the second pair is that we missed one of the GP places. I was sure the driver knew where they were going so I just ignored it…Nokia Drive kept saying, “U-turn” but we kept on going further and further until it seemed quite evident by the driver’s reaction that we were lost and her ‘Machine’ was not working as she asked us to see if the house numbers was going up or down.
So I brought up Nokia Drive, showed the destination and it spoke clearly and loudly the instructions. Lo and behold with doubts that a phone could do better than a dedicated Sat Nav, it proudly said, “you have reached your destination” right outside the correct GP that the TomTom had missed earlier.
The driver notes that her TomTom doesn’t normally go awry, working 90% of the time. I note, true – but this one’s Nokia Drive.
I went back to my seat thinking it was just a little blip by the TomTom device. No. We kept getting lost. We ended up 2 miles away from to an industrial site that was clearly not a GP. Out comes Nokia Drive again, driver still a little doubtful, BAM. “You have reached your destination”. I was surprised how quickly that Nokia Drive had calculated several different routes in the time the TomTom was still ‘calculating’. I didn’t even recognize that as a process.
I’m sure Nokia Drive would have been the same amazing performance on the N9 or Nokia Maps on N8. The GPS lock was superb, absolutely superb. Quick to lock and kept the lock, fast to find locations and produce a route. No one else had Sat Nav on their phones, and one guy that did said his battery was low. In fact, the last pair were kinda scared that they would get lost as I was in a pair that would leave before them. The Driver even joked that I might have to leave my phone with her.
In all, thanks to the Uni for picking the most random and remote GP places from each other to find. Not quite sure where we might have ended up if it weren’t for Nokia Drive. I really hadn’t expected it to outperform a dedicated GPS satnav unit. I do wish though that it was better integrated into phone searches, i.e. the craptastic Bing Maps is hidden away (with its taptitap navigation) instead Nokia Drive when using the search button to find places. Oh, I think with the few Nokia Drive updates on the Lumia it was able to handle being multitasked. The first time I tried it it would have to reload and my navigation disappeared. This time it just continues navigation – great when needing to use the web to check the address on the printed sheets was the correct one for that GP.
Category: Nokia, Windows Phone
About the Author (Author Profile)
Hey, thanks for reading my post. My name is Jay and I'm a medical student at the University of Manchester. When I can, I blog here at mynokiablog.com and tweet now and again @jaymontano. We also have a twitter and facebook accounts @mynokiablog and facebook.com/MyNokiaBlog. Contact us at tips(@)mynokiablog.com or email me directly on jay[at]mynokiablog.comSubscribe
If you enjoyed this article, subscribe to receive more just like it.
Great story jay, nice to see that Nokia Drive saved the day
What does GP stand for?
General Practitioner
As a german medical student i’m pretty interested what that term means. Is it some kind of general physician like a family doctor (german Allgemeinmediziner) who has skills in “little” surgery, internal medicine, medicine of women/children etc.?
Yeah GP in UK is a little like Allgemeinmediziner or the term I use Hausarzt. They are your first point of contact when you are sick and they might direct you to a specialist. General medicine Yes! Little surgery Not really!
nokia drive rules! i use it so often that is a 100% deciding factor! thank god, is on the lumia! if not, n9 was the other option for my upgrade!
Can you make calls and do other tasks while nokia drove is running on wp? Can it find places even when you spell address’s wrong?
You can make calls and use other functions, but Nokia Maps freezes in the background and resumes when you switch back to it. In other words, if you switch away to (say) browse the web you may miss directions to turn, etc.
Although why you’d be doing that while driving is debatable..!
You can listen to podcasts and music (provided they are in the background and Maps is current and on-screen. Directions are given over the top of music playback (which does not quieten or pause) which can be a bit confusing and deafeningly loud(!)
Overall – as Jay reported, Maps is fast & easy to use: Overall it’s a nicer experience than the latest Maps on my N8 which is far more feature-rich.
The only downside I can see is the need for a data connection when searching for a destination. Sometimes I still have to pull the N8 out of the glovebox when I’m out of data coverage (and that’s a lot here in rural Southwest UK.
One of the reason why im still loyal to Nokia
which tomtom was it?
Does the Nokia Drive on the Lumia still require a data connection to work?
For some weird reason t does.. even after downloading the maps.. hope it gets fixed.
Same for the N9…
Even if maps are downloaded beforehand sometimes it will ask permission for connecting to the net.
I guess it happens because of the downloaded map is not detailed enough/outdated thus client asks server for the needed location info.
If the same place is looked-up again usually it does not connect to the net again – some kind of caching mechanism?
I don’t know how much data it consumes .. but I don’t understand the point why it still needs data connection even after downloading the map.. that will make it totally worthless if you should be traveling to another country.. the costs involved in data transfer will be enough to buy a new TomTom. I hope they are able to fix that because there are other maps which don’t require data connection to use it.
Usually it does not connect to the server – at least in case of the N9 – but in some cases, yes.
If no info in the downloaded map what else it should do?
I think data is only for traffic. I Can navigate using my N9 without a Sim installed. Same goes for N8.
And Jay, I’m guessing you don’t use your GPS often? I drive a lot,, so regularly use mine. And the only trouble I’ve had was with altered Roads. Generally it’s fantastic.
After switching to N9 from a N8 I see some things missing
one of which is street name reading is gone
and probably some other things but since I haven’t used it in a while I don’t remember what else…
One thing about tomtom. Allways have the latest maps installed and quickfix! I do think the tomtom is better then nokia maps. Have driven with the nokia n8 and tomtom and the tomtom got the latest maps and so the n8 to. But the tomtom were quicker to find a new road. And was quicker to get back on track
wrong cover pic! thats the N9
Nokia’s GPS app is nice but it’s so very, very basic!
No multiple route points, no multiple route choices… just basic A to B navigation.
Youtube search a comparison between Nokia Maps and TomTom on iOS.
Why dont you try it for yourself rather than watching Youtbe videos?
N8′s Sat nav is called Nokia Drive too and it’s the original and best. Why? Completely offline – does not need any internet at all after you install the map, better GPS hardware – N8 is known to be much better than even dedicated Sat Nav, more fully featured than the WP version as far as I am aware, better battery life – of course a N8 with a new Nokia battery will last longer because Symbian is much more efficient and so is the N8 hardware, and finally proper multitasking on Symbian means the N8 can run Drive and Google Maps for better points of interest and run Music and FM transmitter and web browser (eg for passenger) all simultaneously. And actually run camera too for shots on route as I’ve done before.
All reasons I won’t be changing my N8 for a non-Symbian device any time soon.
nokia drive will be completly offline in an upcoming update
as for the other multitasking actions you can do them with the lumia 800 too (except for the fm transmitter ofcourse)
You are so misinformed!
N8′s GPS lacks the functionality. Nokia is stripping more and more features from it.
No, I’m just speaking from my experience and that of others
As for features, again my experience is Nokia are adding in more and more and more (on the version that Symbian runs).
It is FAR more fully featured than any standalone device or sat nav for other phones out there. Have you seen all the stuff in Nokia Maps Suite? Loads of top name guides all linked to the map, weather, drive, walk, maps, Here and Now, Live View (Augmented Reality), public transport, Places, Pulse – now answer me HONESTLY Cod3rror – can TomTom standalone or on iPhone (or anything Android) do even half of that, and do it for totally FREE?
You’re absolutely right, Alex, Nokia Maps Suite on the N8 is a league of its own.
No iPhone, Android or WP comes near to the experience you have on our beloved N8.
The maps function on the N8 is better in terms of features – for example I nearly got busted by a speed camera coming back from Aberdeen today using my Lumia. The N8 would have warned me about it.
However, I find the Lumia’s Sat Nav to be more accurate and lock on quicker.
Hopefully they can transfer the missing N8 maps features over.
Yes – I miss the ‘Safety Camera’ warnings on the N8 – not been nicked yet, though ;->
“You’ll never take me alive, filthy Copper!”
I can provide a testimonial for the power of a Vauxhall Vectra’s brakes if required!
yeah, just as well BMW ones work better. Nothing worse than people in front of you slamming on the anchors because they were unaware of a so-called ‘safety camera’…
Well, I have both and whilst I agree with your points on the N8 I have to report that if I had to take just one device out for the day it’d be the Lumia as it’s far faster for what you do most with a Satnav.
N8 without a data signal takes an age to get a gps lock and still cannot look up much beyond postcodes and town names.
Bear in mind this is the first iteration of Maps for WP7 – updates will soon bring more comparable functionality to the Lumia whilst more recent updates to the N8 have in fact removed some functionality (e.g. route planning).
I promised myself I wasn’t going to pirate any wp7 app.. but damn it Nokia Drive was tempting so I just unlocked my Omnia just to have it. So far its magical… my only issue is the offline support even thou you can download the maps you cant use it without data connection.
Just for the Nokia Drive am getting the Lumia 900 in 2 months when my current contract expires.
I love Nokia maps and Drive,that why I sold my iphone to get a much better Nokia 800. Why does a Apple screen look like it did years and years ago? Why cant they keep up with Nokia and Microsoft.
Does google now report you to the police if you use android and are speeding?
On line connectivity is only required for the initial post-code / destination search AFAIK, then it can be turned off for the duration of the journey.
Anyone care to validate this?
Thanks.
That is correct. Once your destination is locked in it is no longer required.