I have to agree with davea0288, this is far superior to all of the free mapping solutions out there right now. The only products that even come close are priced in the $100's, and even if you purchase the nav add on this is still much cheaper.
I do agree with Kris though that you can tell it is a Symbian app made to fit onto WM, but once you get past that there is nothing close. I am attaching a quick review I am working on for it.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a Nokia basher like most WM users are; I just like the integration and 3rd part apps on the WM platform much better than what Symbian has to offer. With that said Nokia has seen fit to try its hand at two new fields, Navigation and WM 3rd party software. Not only have they tried, but they have succeeded, and with a beta product no less. The smart2go application (finally) released in beta form (although very stable I had only one crash while using it for about 6 hours) by Nokia yesterday works with a variety of phones, including all versions of WM5, and is FREE for most all of the features. It includes downloadable maps (also works with OTA dl’ing of maps), GPS integration (top notch at that), route planning, a huge POI database and with a relatively inexpensive upgrades (8 Euro each from what I can tell) you get city guides, turn by turn, voice assist, route simulation, and much more. Virtual Earth and Google Maps take notice, this is your new competition, and they have raised the bar significantly.
It is not perfect though, but is far and away the best of the free and low cost alternatives. The downsides to this program, and there are really only 2 that I have noticed so far, are that the app is lacking contact support (how do you overlook this) and it feels like it was made for a very low feature phone, not the rich platform that WM provides to developers. Both of these issues I believe are a result of Nokia developing a platform agnostic solution, which I am not happy with but can understand, that will run on a variety of platforms including most of the Series XX, WM5, and a couple of other various systems are in the works, and the mentality of developing against the Symbian development model. The lack of contact support is not without workarounds though as S2G provides Home and Work hard locations, and a bookmark feature that will let you save as many named locations as you wish. The bookmarks work relatively well, but as those of you that know me know I hate doing things twice, and it just seems silly to have a contact with an address and then have to store that name and address again for use with a single program. With that said entering bookmarks is incredibly tedious and requires putting each part of the address into a separate box and only when the previous part is entered, also there didn’t seem to be a way to do a partial search. This was by far the biggest downfall of the program, to search for an address was a 2 minute ordeal, but came back quickly and was very thorough. On the upside it will let you bring back multiple results and scroll through them directly on the map, something that VE and GM do not let you do. The other half of the negatives was the fact that other than the actual map screen the rest of the app lacked any flair, continuity, or easy navigability; which is something that Nokia normally is very good at. This surprised me as the functionality was a bit hard to figure out at first (of course I could have read the directions I guess), but once you get the button layout and text entering methodology it definitely made the program a bit more usable. The menus were pretty bland, and the active button context was not at all what I expected it to be (the active button is the gray one and the other buttons are a gray blue which seemed backwards to me), but with that said the features more than make up for any limitations listed here.
The application is huge, and by huge I mean that it takes ~20MB of storage space just for the application (maps require additional storage and range from 15MB to 75MB based on the state or territory you are using), but this space is put to great use if you can afford it. Both the application and the maps can be stored on a storage card so this is not a huge issue. It seems to use somewhere in the 6-10Mb range of application memory, which could be an issue for some of the older resource constrained WM5 devices (although I tested the application on a 2125 and BlackJack and it seemed to work fine). The load time is a bit long but once again the payoff is well worth it. Upon initially loading the application you are presented with a fairly standard disclaimer (which I cannot figure out how to disable even though it provides a checkbox to hide at startup), followed by an attempted install of the OpenBit License Manager. This application is installed as a .cab file and provides the ability to do OTA payments for the upgrades the application provides. Once you get past that you are started on a map of what I assume is the HQ of Nokia's gate5. Upon successive startups the application provides a prompt on load to resume the previous route, a very nice feature.
From there you can begin using the program. I started by entering my home and work addresses. This was quite frustrating at first (as noted above) but once I screwed up the search a couple of times and entered my home address in the parts and order it was looking for it jumped directly there and started downloading the map. From there I spent a bit of time scrolling around the map and trying to figure out the button assignments. FYI the buttons in the mapping section are as follows: * zooms in, 0 changes between 2D and 3D, # zooms out, and all the number keys appear to work the same—zoom in. As a general rule the action key in the D-pad works the same as the Right Soft Key and the back button provides no input at all. The first thing I noticed, and really liked was that the cursor can move around the screen without scrolling until you reach the edge of the screen. Initially I was a little confused what benefit this could provide but when I looked at an area that was not in the middle of nowhere (yes I live in the boonies
) it began to make sense. As you scroll around the screen the cursor becomes an identifier. When you move the cursor over a street it tells you not only the street name, but also the approximate address of the point you are highlighting, and when you hover on a POI you get the name and address of the POI. This was a fantastic feature and I can see this providing a huge benefit when navigating in an unfamiliar place, where street numbers can be hard to see while driving. A feature like this is something I have not seen even on the <$150+ true navigation programs. Way to go Nokia!!
This is all well and good, but the best part of the application is the way it integrates with a GPS receiver. Without the level of GPS integration S2G provides I would probably just stick with VE as I like the UI and contact integration better. With VE you have to continually poll the GPS manually which doesn’t allow you to tell heading, direction or your actual location very well. S2G provides complete GPS integration much the way you would get from an actual commercial navigation program. It tells speed, location direction, the name of the road you are traveling on. This is huge for me as there is much of the metro area I live in that I have not even seen yet, and this makes getting somewhere much easier than using VE or GM. Not only that but it allows you to plan, navigate, and visualize beforehand, a route from any 2 or more navigable points. This last part was another shortcoming of VE and GM, in those you needed to plan multiple routes to navigate more than 2 points. This program not only lets you route 3 or more waypoints it also lets you move them around and check multiple routes between them as well.
Another really great feature that reminds me of the ultra expensive navigation programs is the MapLoader application that is available as a separate (but free) download. The basic point of this application is to preload the maps that you are likely to use on a regular basis. It does not preclude you from using OTA downloading, it just gives another option for those who do not have unlimited internet (or those of us with a BlackJack, where 3G use can run the battery flat in a matter of an hour if downloading constantly). The one thing about the maploader that I would like to see added is to be able to load partial maps or route corridor maps. I am planning a trip to Michigan and the amount of maps I will have to load for that is almost 250Mb, and most of the states I need to load are only for the highways. This is not a deal breaker as I have the space to spare, but I have seen some good options in other programs to handle this sort of thing.
Everything listed so far is included in the FREE package. This is by far the largest featureset I have seen in a free mapping program for WM. If you decide to upgrade to the high end features like City Guides and turn by turn navigation (No high end price here; most City Guides are 8 Euro) this by far becomes the navigation program for the money. I also haven’t covered any of the settings, of which there are quite a bit if that is your thing, and some of the nuances of the program are excellent as well, but I will leave that to you to discover and enjoy.
If you have use for a mapping and navigation program and feel that VE is lacking in navigation features then this just may be the program for you.
--Raaden
Nokia Delivers Free Downloadable Maps to the Mobile World, Windows Mobile Included
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