Getting lost and found with Windows Phone and Nokia Drive 3.0

Two Weeks With Nokia Drive 3.0

At the kickoff of the twelvemonth I took up driving with gusto, you lot see, being a Londoner I accept really had picayune need of a car. For i reason or another, it had started to become a nuisance not driving so I decided to change my wicked, public send loving ways and get a license to fire fossil fuels. I took an intensive course and recently passed. During the process of getting my license I bought a Lumia 800, of course, it is a wonderful device only wanted it for those complimentary and extensive driving maps. So how does Nokias's mapping software get on? I have been testing it for a few weeks now, read on to see how well it works.

In Car Navigation! Made Easy!

In Use

Nokia Drive comes with the usual features for getting about. Upon opening the app y'all'll be asked to set a destination, fairly standard stuff, search past postcode, street proper noun or even name of the location (such a name of a church or landmark) and it should have no problems finding what you're afterwards. In one case you have confirmed your destination you tin can so opt to save it to your favourites, saving you the bother of repetition. Next finish is to hit 'Drive To' and off you go, information technology's every bit unproblematic as that.

Voice Options

Whilst not a new language – Surfer Dude is enjoyable..

Whilst driving, you'll get those important audio turn-by-turn directions along with options for viewing the map in portrait, landscape, night way and twenty-four hour period mode. Yous tin besides ready alarms to buzz y'all when you lot exceed the speed limit by a certain corporeality. Importantly for a navigation app you tin can catch offline maps in case you lose your data connection or yous happen to be going somewhere where there isn't any cellular network (perish the thought!). Nokia are too kind plenty to provide plenty of options for choosing the blazon of vocalism navigation y'all prefer. You can choose from a huge array of languages and pick a male or female voice. We fifty-fifty found an option to download 'Surfer Dude' which is fun although it can be distracting too.

Nokia Drive

How well does it work?

Things in London at the moment are rather confusing every bit we accept the Olympics on. Some roads are totally closed to normal traffic and other roads are snarled upwards due to dedicated Olympic lanes for cars and busses. One time a road is programmed into maps, it does a neat task of giving directions and coping with odd, missed turnings. We take no complaints about its ability to re-calculate quickly and movement on but there are some chinks to its otherwise impeccable armour.

Nokia Drive Portrait Mode

Nokia Bulldoze – Night Colours

Alive Traffic Information

Nokia Drive iii.0 does non seem to use any alive traffic data, even though the backend platform is currently using information technology. If yous look at the maps built into Windows Phone, Nokias mapping technology is being used ability it, you volition be able to see where all that snarled up traffic is. You tin can also come across information technology on the dissever Nokia Maps app.

Regardless of all that backend goodness, Nokia drive is blissfully ignorant of traffic and does nothing to finish y'all heading to blocked roads or routes so snarled upward information technology volition come across you sitting however for an hour or more. As long as you know where those black spots and expressionless ends are, you can simply steer around them and Nokia Drive volition happily recalculate the route. During testing, the omission of traffic information and re-routing caused needless delays that could accept been hands prevented by some intelligent grade changes.

Whilst on some high-speed roads we have noticed the GPS getting rather dislocated, spinning the map orientation around frantically and advising of a major route change. During one incident I was certain that my route was correct and it was a glitch so continued on but the navigation voice boomed out repeatedly telling me to alter my course, at times this became more than a piddling distracting. Nosotros'll go along testing to meet if those were just random bugs or its something nowadays that needs to be ignored from fourth dimension to time.

We will need to bring upward the rather light options for tailoring a route more advisedly. Nokia Drive currently volition non give you any options to define such basic things as avoiding motorways or toll roads. Neither will the suggested route be detailed in an itemised mode and then equally that it'southward quickly possible to see the principal features of the journey. Yous are just presented with a road map showing your start and finish points. Its possible to zoom in and wait at the road but it feels quite clumsy because Windows Phone's congenital in maps offer volition show y'all an easy to follow route list.

Conclusion

On the bench Nokia Drive 3.0

Nokia Bulldoze is certainly a swell product. That information technology comes costless with Lumia handsets is wonderful and certainly makes information technology a selling point. In apply, the app is for the well-nigh part solid, quick to utilize and logical. It is not without its issues though.

Nosotros would like to see the traffic information and re-routing congenital into this app every bit shortly every bit possible, considering the app is now at iii.0 this would be far more useful than 3D landmarks for example. There is no synchronizing of favourites to Nokia Maps, whilst Nokia Maps is happily synchronizing favourites upwardly to the cloud and back, Bulldoze volition only save favourites on the device. That is a existent shame and should exist easy to fix.

Route planning is likewise in need of some extra features to put it over the summit. The app should allow for fugitive motorways and toll roads. Showing the road in an itemised way rather than just a map would besides allow quick reference of where it intends to go.

Overall, Nokia Maps is fantastic, its helped me have my first steps in getting around London's often confusing traffic systems and bar a few niggles it's been faultless. We certainly hope to see more features rolled into Nokia Drive over the coming months. A concerted push to go features like 'My Commute' delivered to more countries is also expected. If Nokia tin can continue up the pace on these updates, Drive will lead the pack by a long way indeed. We're sure word is already spreading..

We'd love to hear how you guys are finding Nokia Bulldoze. Are y'all happy with how it is right now? Would yous like to see whatever features that we didn't mention in the overview? Would yous consider the app in its current state to be best in grade? Please do let united states of america know in the comments bellow.

Nokia Drive is an sectional to the Lumia Windows Phone line and you can take hold of information technology here in the Nokia Collection.