Nokia Ovi Maps with free turn-by-turn navigation hands-on
By Richard Lai 
posted January 21st 2010 5:31AM
posted January 21st 2010 5:31AM
posted January 21st 2010 5:31AM
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soon tomtom and the likes will be out of business
@EI8HT either that, or they'll be making android phones
@EI8HT
Man, I'm loving my Nokia 5800 XM so much now , v40 ,NSU for Win 7 , and this ! wow. Hope I am not dreaming.
@brrip : Or WinMo phones, since Google has offered Google Navigation for Android devices...
@Quikboy i meant more because that seems to be what everyone is doing nowadays. even motorola's making a comeback on android.
@EI8HT
I dubt them companies are going any where
i wouldn't use my phone gps turn by turn when i am out on my boating the ocean or when i take my trips to Montana in mountains there still a market for personal gps
when on the ocean my phone would not be as good as nice marine gps unite or in mountains i would perfer a stander gps unit for map reading and so forth
@YoYo
Do you really think that Nokia with this move aimed at conquering the marine navigational positioning system ?
What moron would rely on a cellphone for navigation on a ship or an aircraft ?
This niche markets are not Tomtom, Garmin, or Navigon bread and butter in any case and by the way, I also doubt that NASA will rely on OVI maps to land the shuttle Columbia even if it's gonna be free and if the cuts in federal budgets will force them to cut some corners.
@Plexus yeah it wouldn't work for my frequent trips to mars either. damn, NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
@Plexus
No shit, that was the whole purpose of his post. That TomTom and the like will STAY in business because people won't use their cellphones for sailing, hiking, cycling, etc.
Way to be a parrot.
@Nokia N900 Good to hear that. I ordered a 5800 XM a couple of days ago myself. Feels like Christmas. LOL
@EI8HT
They will be out of business as soon as this is available for my N97. To think I was planning on getting a new GPS unit...
@Plexus first off marine navgation is not a nich market
it huge fucking huge industries and fact probably right up there with cell phones market
@Plexus
Good points. Not to mention major companies like Trimble, that make precision GPS equipment for the construction, marine, agriculture and surveying industries! Trimble even has sub-centimeter GPS technology in the market (that's a location precision of less than 1 cm.) - try that with a cellphone!
garmin...tomtom...goodbye....
@fangwenqing
When they see this....they will shit bricks.
ohhh nokia, i love your style!
This will be what forces Google to bring Maps Navigation outside of America to other countries. They will need to compete.
@thebolster
True, but it will take ages. Giving the fact that Tomtom and Navteq are the only companies with complete global mapdata Google has to buy licence from either one of them. And something tells me Navteq isn't selling. So Google has two options: Wait for their streetview Google-mobiles to drive thru the entire world or buy licence from Tomtom. Now that Nokia has made Navigating free I suspect Tomtom would be down with that..
The way I see it, navigation will no longer be about who has the cheapest service. It's going to be about who can make it's service
a) more consumer friendly,
b) more accessible and
c) more complete with additional data such as gas-stations, restaurants etc.
@mottis
TomTom might be up for it, but it certainly will not be free. To give Google that would soon mean that almost all their income would have to come from Google.
Cheapest option in long run would be to buy TomTom I guess, this certainly affects the price tag.
@mottis
Garmin has much better coverage with maps than TomTom or Navteq. At least for Europe
@mottis Actually, I think Nokia already owns Navteq. They bought them in 2007.
@mottis yes i believe eventually, the money's gonna come from companies paying to literally be "on the map"
@djmickey83
Garmin has better coverage? Did you know that Garmin buys its maps from Navteq?
Superb move Nokia.
Damn Engadget do u want to give fanboys like SnitchAnderson to have a heart attack?
Finally!!!
I was so jealous of Android having their navigation system but now I can just enjoy my Nokia phone without worrying that Google will know that I went to a strip club ;)
@Mr w00t
CIA is still watching you, look up in the sky!
@AA Alex Thank God I live in europe then...
Just waiting for Galileo to come out so we can finally ditch GPS :D
@Mr w00t
So you think that CIA is only working in the States?
@Mr w00t COMMENT OF THE DAY!!
@mottis So, the Central (Lack) of Intelligence Agency is going to find me here? In europe? The same agency that "found" the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the one that uses the drones with unencrypted signal?
Wait... ahhh... I am sitting now. Hope it doesnt take long.
I wish you guys were so quick with the N900 review
Really quite an impressive freebie, this.
see google, not only you can do anything.
stupid big company.
@rhezaganteng, Thats what I like about Nokia / ovi maps the can work offline u just download the country you want, without using your data plan (if u have one). Google are silly not to have there maps working offline, they only neet to connect when u want aditional infomation, the same as nokia.ovi maps.
Good work nokia, europe is fighting back :-)
@Newwales
You do know why Google doesn't want you to download the maps and do stuff offline? Their business idea certainly isn't to offer free stuff.
What are thee chances for the e71? Do you guys think it will get free navigation in the future?
@Zomer
Of course !
@Nokia N900
i'd be careful about saying "of course" to this. E71 NAM hasn't gotten a firmware update since v210 when other versions of it are at v400.
For this Price~ the results are Nice
It's available for most recent Nokias- there's a small link to find the right version for older phones at the bottom of the page.
@Bobfantastic : Ovi Maps 3 is. The free navigation is not.
"The preloaded map does indeed load much quicker than its old network counterpart". What are you talking about?! Ovi maps has _always_ had preloaded maps.
@jodyfanning
Yeah, if you pre-download them via computer. People who hasn't done that had had to have a dataplan. But still, using this without a dataplan is terrible. It picks up your current location in 1-5 mins. With A-GPS it's cut down to 5-10 secs.
@mottis
Here where i live, ppl usually turn on A-GPS to help cut down cold lock time. It will take 2-3kb only and translated to a few cents of prepaid data. Which is negligable and acceptable.
It does not need the huge data plan.
@fighterfelix
..and your GPS then can stay with that? How much does these huge data plans cost then?
Did they fix its tendency to lock your location onto roads during pedestrian navigation, or the fact that you can't disable the rotate-map-to-movement function?
OVI maps has been shutdown on my browser on my N900. Either I'm out in the cold on this one or they're updating something.
So Engadget isn't feeling so snarky about Nokia's big news now? ;)
http://www.engadget.com/2010/01/18/nokia-ovi-press-event-this-thursday-big-news-promised/
@xbit
Guess some ppl got TOLD