BlackBerry GPS Navigation options (part 2)

Garmin Mobile for BlackBerry 4.0.1

Garmin, one of the biggest players in the dedicated GPS market, has 2 products for the BlackBerry. The first, for BlackBerries with built-in GPS, sports at $99 one time fee. The catch: if you buy a new BlackBerry you must purchase the Garmin Mobile software again. The other product, is for BlackBerries that lack built-in GPS but have Bluetooth. That product is $149 per year and includes a Bluetooth GPS receiver. Since I'm using a BlackBerry 8800 with built-in GPS, I'll be reviewing the first product. Garmin offers a 7 day trial and I put this through it's paces on our week long trip to Texas.

I started by downloading (http://getmobile.garmin.com/trial) the trial software directly onto the phone. It took about 10 minutes but I only had 1 or 2 bars of coverage at the time.

Once the Garmin software was launched, I was struck by how much it looked and behaved like a Garmin nuvi GPS device. This might seem obvious so I'll restate it a different way. Garmin Mobile for BlackBerry doesn't behave like a BlackBerry application. In fact the BlackBerry menu button is completely disabled throughout the entire application.

The Garmin gets right down to the navigation business with the first option being "Where to?". It allows you to enter addresses, cities, intersections, airports or search from over 6 millions points of interest. It had no trouble finding any of the addresses we gave it, including one rural address. After setting out the Garmin will offer voice turn-by-turn directions and does speak street names, although the speaker on the 8800 seemed the limit their usefulness. In fact, my wife uttered the question, "what did it say?", on more than one occasion. The Garmin also displayed a tendency to over-navigate by directing you to stay on the same road at major intersections.

I spoke to a Garmin support representative to gather information for this review, and he confirmed what I already suspected. Garmin Mobile for BlackBerry will try to download information about your entire route when you enter the destination at the start of your journey. This makes it far less likely to lose your map because you hit a cellphone deadzone. In fact, I drove the entire way from Denver to Dallas/Fort Worth without losing the map.

The map, however, is a little spartan. Since Garmin Mobile downloads so much information about the route, and there's very little need for side streets off the highway or minor intersections, information for these locations is not downloaded or displayed. When you do get on city streets, however, the map becomes more detailed. In the map view, it also shows the distance to next instruction, ETA at destination, and compass direction.

Other Notes:

• Garmin Mobile has many different vehicle types that it will optimize routes for. Car, Pedestrian, Bicycle, Bus, Truck and Taxi. We only used the car setting.
• By default, it will avoid U-turns but you may also avoid toll roads, highways, traffic jams, unpaved roads and the like.
• Garmin Mobile automatically switches to "night" colors which are darker. The darker scheme worked much better after dusk. We only used it once at night and the automatic switch happened at 8:10pm. I have no idea how it worked out that time.
• Speaking of driving at night, it was very useful to see the road curving on the map before I could see the actual road. Made my driving smoother.
• Although I had a car charger, I was able to use Garmin Mobile for 6 hours while on battery and since have some charge left.

Concerns:

• Garmin say they will "work with you" if your BlackBerry is lost or damaged. No guarantees that they won't try to extract another $99.
• We had one trouble spot with the maps. A road closure due to a bridge being replaced was not known and Garmin Mobile kept trying to navigate us over the non-existent bridge. We had directions from a local resident and knew how to get around it. Garmin Support's answer wasn't all that great, merely telling me that if Garmin didn't know about the closure, neither would anyone else. In other words, we're just as bad at this as everyone else.
• Garmin Mobile doesn't have "Find along route", like some Garmin nuvi devices. In other words, it can't tell how close the next gas station is on your route. It can tell where the closest gas stations are, but they are in every direction.
• So far it's only supported in the US & Canada.

Overall, I found Garmin Mobile to be a pleasing experience and while it will take you through places that locals wouldn't go via, it does get you to your destination.

BlackBerry GPS Navigation options (part 1)

One of my criteria for the perfect mobile device is having a functioning GPS navigation system included. I've been evaluating some of the options for the BlackBerry. All of these options were tested on a BlackBerry 8800 from T-Mobile. The 8800 has a built in GPS chip, although all of the apps tested work with external Bluetooth GPS devices as well. I have an unlimited data plan, and as you'll see, you should have that before using your BlackBerry as a GPS. For proper use in a vehicle, I got a windshield mount and a car charger as well.

Google Maps 2.2

A review of Google Maps as a GPS navigation tool can be written as a single word: worthless.

While it's a free download, the app lacks map rotation and doesn't disable display sleep so everything goes dark after 30 seconds (system default) and now you can't tell where you are on the map.

Google Maps still has it's uses and works with cell-tower triangulation if you don't have a GPS. But as a navigational tool, don't even try.

BlackBerry Maps 1.1

BlackBerry Maps is perhaps the most surprising app I looked at. It's also a free download, but sports basic navigation features. The interface is very uncluttered. Aside from the map, it shows 4 other items in a surprising small amount of screen real estate: the street you are on, the number of GPS satellites connected, your speed and the direction of travel.

It can plot directions from your current location, but doesn't offer turn-by-turn voice directions. This is actually quite pleasant. If you wander off course, you never have a snotty English lady telling you to turnaround or making you feel that this car is too good for you. It was very nice, on one of my tests, to take 8th Ave instead 6th Ave and not be given any correction.

BlackBerry Maps does not come with any built-in maps, and all map data is downloaded using your BlackBerry's data connection. Downloads seem "light" and do not hog the data connection. Map data is downloaded before it is needed based on your direction of travel. I didn't have the chance to take the 8800 out of town and into the mountains but I'm very sure that a lack of cell signal would result in no map.

Interestingly, this lack of built-in maps brings up a possibility. Many "normal", that is dedicated GPS devices, ship with a fixed set of maps for say, the US and Canada. For certain models, additional maps can be purchased. However, with BlackBerry Maps all map data is stored online. Updates to that data should be immediately available to everyone. Furthermore, I had no trouble downloading street maps for Scotland or France, even although I wasn't in either country. So, you should be able to take a BlackBerry internationally and use BlackBerry Maps for navigation, although you may want to unlock your BlackBerry and get a local SIM card as international data roaming is very, very expensive. Like start selling your organs to pay the bill, expensive.

Additionally, BlackBerry Maps can use the street addresses in your Address Book as destinations and perform local searches for locations such as restaurants, libraries, etc

I do have a couple of concerns.

• On a few occasions, BlackBerry Maps seemed to stall. The speedometer and compass functions continued to work but the map and my position on it did not update. (It was not related to a lack a of cell coverage.)
  
• The map does not zoom to an appropriate level. Let me give you an example. If you turn onto a side street, and your current zoom level doesn't show side streets, the map doesn't zoom and it's looks (on screen at least) that you are driving off road.
• While I didn't take BlackBerry Maps out of town, it would be nice to have some sort of Download Maps for Route function that downloaded maps based on your driving directions ahead of time. This would make cell phone deadzones much less of an issue.

All that said, I can strongly recommend BlackBerry Maps for basic GPS navigation functions, especially for city driving. If you want a more feature rich experience you'll have to spend money.

Next up, I'll be evaluating Garmin's offering for BlackBerries.