Very dissapointing Navigation...

[Tweasol]

I was hoping to replace my garmin with the DROID, bought the dock and everything. I do pizza deliveries and already found a bunch of annoyances:

- No Night time mode!! Sooo annoying. I cant say that enough.
- Navigation ends in the middle of main roads when I still need to turn off the main road and maybe onto another street or 2.
- Takes the longest route possible. Seriously it's unbelievably retarded.
- Voice commands suck ass. Via is not BE A. Seems like a voice command prompt for navigation ought to recognize VIA. I mean come on.


I definitley won't be getting rid of my Garmin, probably not for a while. Unless Google really takes things up a notch here, this was crap.

 

[LifeIsABeach]

I am sticking with my Garmin as well. When I tried it Google Maps made some crazy route suggestions, got street names wrong, etc. You can't expect Google to immediately beat out a company that has been making GPSs for years. This is only their first pass. I am sure it will get better over time, but not sure it will ever be as good as a dedicated GPS.

 

[rlb]

I'll take it for free....And don't forget its in beta still. I'm pretty impressed with their first run. I'm sure it will do fine for what I need: Occasional directions.

I can see where there might be limitations if your job requires you to get multiple destinations in the quickest manner possible on a daily basis. Otherwise, I think its pretty damn good.

 

[Dan_Droid]

I live in a major city and have been using the navigation daily. So far I haven't had it be wrong once. I find it difficult to complain about such an awesome service when it is free, still in beta, and will probaqbly include free updates for the forseeable future, even if there is the occasional inaccuracy. And on a cell phone no less!

I'm sure google will be updating and improving the navigation on a regular basis, and it will most likely be free. If you require perfect accuracy and don't mind paying a benjamin a year to keep your maps updated, then by all means please use a dedicated hardware GPS. Google nav is probably not for you if your tolerance for error is so low.

 

[bigtony]

I'm in the Northern Jersey area and the only hiccup I've run into is the nav trying to have me turn in the wrong direction down a one way, but I do have to give it to google for the very fast reroute, it is faster than TeleNav or VZ Navigator

 

[Slighter]

I've posted this comment on another thread. This is not a dedicated Navigation device. G Nav is only one facet of this truly awesome communication device. Having come from Copilot on windows mobile this is feature rich, easy to use, accurate and being $FREE$ there is no comparison. If I was on any of the developer teams reading all these complaints I would have to ask "What have you got(or done) that's better?" Just can't please every one.

 

[TomN]

I drive around all day doing hardware support at different known locations and I've been using the navigation pretty heavily to test. The routes seem fine for what I do, but some of the addresses haven't been in the right spot. A lot have been a block or two away from the actual location. Still not bad for a free beta service. Hoping it improves though.

 

[kpiskin]

I'm pretty impressed with the voice recognition. It has easily recognized 9 out of 10 locations I was trying to navigate to and provided great routing results. I would like layers to be on along with the routing as well as a night time mode. Unfortunately you can only look at a static traffic map, and you can't also see where those heavy traffic areas are as you're driving.

 

[808droid]

It works fine for a FREE NAV system. Haven't had any problems, Google is still in the works in your area maping everything, I see their car on the roads here just about every week....

 

[New2u]

Yes, you do have to understand this is their first device that has had this feature, it's not something they'd had on many other devices, so they are still working out the kinks. Of course right off the line I wouldn't want to replace my garmins either, but it is a great alternative to those who don't have it, because it's free. Unlike anything else, with time, and many other units capable of using it, it should be upgraded to well beyond what garmins can do.

I used to have vz nav as part of my package, so once in awhile i would use it, when i first got it, it was terrible, much like the google nav system. Though the past year it had actually turned into a really nice program, it would guide me 100% of the way, no matter where i used it at. Though i'm sure there were still a few problems here and there with it.

 

[dezymond]

Google's idea is to subtract the things you carry, why carry a phone and a gps unit when you can have both in one? Although it doesn't beat my Garmin, i think it works great and it's not far from beating my Garmin. It recalculates fast and gives me pretty quick routes. It also gives me the ETA, which my Garmin doesn't and also provides traffic view, which my Garmin doesn't do also. The voice could use some work, sounds way too robotic and can be hard to understand. But Google definitely has something here. As for the way it routes, I don't go too many places im not familiar with, but routing seems more than good enough for me.

Besides, you have to pay upwards of $120 for some of these units, and those can be the lower end Garmins too, such as mine with no Traffic view or Landscape. GPS signal itself is free, it's the hardware and software you're paying for. The Droid is a phone first and a GPS second. Besides it's free and in beta, so can't whine about that. Expecting a beta software to replace a popular company software that's been in the game for years? No way that'll ever happen, but Google really does have a bright future from what I can see.

Droid is the ultimate package so far to me :bowdown:

 

[texasPI]

I guess you missed the beta part when you start it up? Sheesh, long time garmin user myself and I've been impressed with it so far. Back in my pizza delivery days didn't even have a gps. I still think looking on the map before making a run is faster and I bet I could still beat all of you using gps.

Forgot to add that I've used devices from most major manufacturers and they all to some extent make mistakes as well. Like the one way street turns. For the average user that will use it to navigate somewhere they have never been to, it'll do the job even if they take a less than ideal route. The point in these cases is getting there and for the price? Can't beat it!

 

[New2u]

Yeah i only use GPS when i'm in a totally different town

 

[pwjone1]

A positive Droid GPS experience!

OK, I have to say, I have some experience with GPS devices, I now own three:

1. Acura TL Nav
2. Garmin GPS
3. Droid

and I have experience with various others, Magellan, TomTom, etc., through doing some travel, rentals, borrowed, friends, etc.

Is the Droid competitive? Well, I have to say, it starts with a bit of a disadvantage, with a 3.7" screen, even fairly high res, it's a little tougher to see than the others (the smallest I regularly use is the 4.3" Garmin), but the various GPS manufacturers are still selling 3.5" screens, so it's maybe competitive with those. The spoken names thing isn't bad, some of the cheaper GPSs still don't have that. But the dedicated units have some advantages.

But I think what kind of brought it together for me, to where I finally "got" the whole Droid GPS Navigation/Integration thing, was when we went out to dinner at a new place. I had used the Droid to web-search zagat ratings for the Restaurant, we both went "High rating, should try this place out!", click over to Google search to peak at the web site and the current menu, checked the travel time via Google maps, another click and we're calling them up the restaurant to book the reservation, and so off to the car to drive there, after noting down the address. Type that into the car GPS, and away we go. Kind of thought, ok, that's it, put the Droid in the pocket. However, low and behold, turns out the Restaurant is on one of those streets where everything is numbered oddly, car Nav has trouble finding it, we realize we've driven by, so...we pull over, pull out the Droid, couple of taps to turn on its Navigation, and it takes us right there, street view as we get close, which helped (it was in kind of a strip mall, turned out). So I think Google's maps were just a little more up to date. Had the phone out anyway, so read through a review or two of the restaurant, what was good there, as we're waiting, and so we knew what to order pretty quickly after the drinks showed up. It's the whole integration of the Droid thing, the quick 3G downloads of the web sites and other information, integrated Integration + Phone, etc. The whole is greater than the parts. I've had smart phones before, but nothing this integrated and fast.

(And before someone points this out, I realize there are NRU and Zagat to go '10 aps, believe me I'm contemplating installing/buying those, what I did web-wise was just through the browser)

 

[pwjone1]

Oh, and one more thing, the Acura Nav package cost me $2k, the Garmin close on $250 (after a huge markdown at Fry's), and I got the Droid nav essentially for free (I bought the Droid because Verizon is the dominant network around here, I already had the data plan for the previous WM phone, so it was a new-after-2 discount, etc. AT&T was smart as heck to make the Apple iPhone deal, Verizon has a thing or two to learn about having current equipment, but in the end, I buy a phone for how well the phone part works, and around here, AT&T, particularly 3G, is "Not exactly".)

Anyway, I am glad I don't own stock in GPS manufacturers (or car companies), as a big part of their revenue stream is about to be cut off, as Droids and iPhones become more prevalent. I live in a relatively high-tech area, MHV NY, so iPhones (and now Droids), Blackberry's, WMs, etc., are pretty common, I would imagine that these types of phones and networks are going to take off in all the major areas, and eventually, there won't be a reason to buy a stand-alone GPS unit. Sort of like what I do now, I rarely carry a calculator, as the phone is good enough in most instances (although I do love my HP12C, for work, vintage). The portable Garmin was bought largely for travel (got tired of the $8-15 / day charges by the rental car companies, it's when you're out of town that you most need GPSs anyway). I flat would not buy one now, with the Phone. It's not as good, but it's good enough. I would still buy a Nav system built into the car, that's inherently got some advantages (and here, Europe is way ahead of the US), but a lot of people are not going to pony up $2k, if they have an iPhone or Droid. It would be nice if the manufacturers could standardize on the dock, and start building that in (the Acura TL system decreases the volume on the audio system, to give you verbal instructions, that's one of the advantages of having GPS built-in, but no reason it couldn't do that for phone verbal directions).