Nokia Maps: A great disapointment.

Review for Ovi Maps Beta for mobile (v3.03)

13-11-2009 12:49

Hi there,

I use Nokia for more than 8 years. I had several models, including N93 and 6300. I bought Nokia 5800 especially for the GPS cause I needed navigation throughout Europe. I upgraded phone firmware and Nokia Maps. I downloaded all the maps I needed via PC link. I paid my licence for navigation also.

My experience for the last 3 months:

- A-GPS: Going outside your home country is very expensive - Even in 'Offline' mode the phone 'secretly' (the map screen tiny connection icon shows 'offline') connects to the network to transfer data for A-GPS which cost me around 100 euro last time. If you turn off A-GPS you just can't use the GPS because the phone CANNOT MAKE A GPS LOCK IN A CITY AT ALL!

- The map constantly rotates when you drive around without guided navigation, which not only distracts you from driving (you need to drive and look and operate the phone), but CONFUSESYOUR ORIENTATION MORE in an unknow place, which is not exactly what you need a navigation system to do for you.

- Walking mode. What do you need this for when you don't have public transport in the maps? "Walk straight next 11 kilometers" - yes, thanks,

- General level of the maps is bad. Go to a city other than the capital Sofia in Bulgaria (EU country) and you will see... no streets at all on the map. Yes, thanks again for yor 'service' which I paid licence for.

- Other general 5800 bugs: Sometimes it just rings with the default tone, sometimes it desn't ring with sound at all, apps crashing etc. I'm shure you'll see these bugs in some better 5800 bug review. This is so pitty, really, in these days level of technology.

My total cost for the phone and bills made from the A-GPS transfer EXCEEDS the price of a luxury standalone GPS navigation, AND MOST OF THE TIMES I STILL DON"T HAVE NAVIGATION unless I pay more.

So thank you dear Nokia for 'helping me' with your unfinished, but higly promoted and highly priced technology! You can do whatever firmware upgrades you want, but I won't buy Nokia again, sorry, I'll buy something finished and working.

Otherwise, your phones (talking devices) are good.

Best wishes on the development,
Dian Zagorchinov,
Berlin

Comments

Submitted by navio1973 on 15-11-2009 01:11.

about A-GPS: in positioning settings, you find a page for servers, you can choose: automatic, automatic in your home network, always ask and disable.
If you select disable, there will no the connections to the servers, but the time to fix will be longer, but if you use it every days, it will be in 1-2 minutes.
About the coverage of the maps, it is known that they are working a lot for the eastern europe countries, few time ago I read that there will be an improvement of the maps for this region.
Another thing for do not spend money for nothing, if you have not done it, load the maps on the phone with the map loader (all Europe is about 2 GB, all the world 5 GB)

Navio
Nokia N95(01.01) V 31.0.017 RM 159
Nokia N97 V20.0.019 RM 505

Submitted by series60nokia on 27-11-2009 01:30.

Hi Guys is a new fix being worked on for N97. Lags about 50metres behind. When is this issue going to be fixed as it has been this way for ages. I guess it cant be that hard to recallibrate map and GPS Data. Why is it taking so long?

Submitted by mbrett on 27-11-2009 09:36.

You need to arrange with your local Nokia Care Centre to have the GPS fix done. It works. I had it done on my N97 and now there is no Lag in OVI Maps. The GPS patch antenna on the earky N97s resulted in too weak a signal. The Fix is to reoplace this with a better one.

I suggest you see your Local Nokia Care Centre.

mbrett
N97 RM-505 (Product Code: 0585262 (Vodafone UK)) FW 12.0.026
N95 8Gb (Product Code: 0558787 (UK)) FW 31.0.015
http:///www.twitter.com/MartynBrett
http://www.n97geeks.com

Submitted by hirak99 on 05-12-2009 14:55.

Not to mention the huge time it adds to startup when you have a moderate collection of landmarks. I have 80, and it delays startup by 15 seconds.

Submitted by saudiqbal on 06-12-2009 10:36.

I already know that it is a great disappointment. It needs a lot of improvement.

Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition,
Tomtom Go720,
Ohio, USA.

Submitted by ToucheTurtle on 07-12-2009 13:09.

I have a replacement N97 and the accuracy is now far better but i do still suffer lag - about 7-10 metres behind my current position which equates in the real world to be pulling off a medium sized roundabout as the phone indicates i'm about to enter it ( I dont get any jumping etc as i used too).

This is even after i have turned the phone off and on again to maximize the ram available.

I only have 1 active widget open on my home screen (associated press) which should not affect the phone performance in any significant way.

I also don't have any other items running in the background that are not already part of the Operating system.

I used to have maps navigation and my music player running on my n95 -1 with no problems but with the n97 this is impossible as lag and music playing in slow motion makes them impossible to use together. This is a great shame.

I am not a software engineer but it seems that the lag is caused by the phone doing too much when processing the gps or displaying the maps - i really think development needs to focus on refining the code and not adding new features - where they are in this beta version is about right feature wise.

N97
Firmware 20.0.019

Using:
Maps 3.03 Beta
and
Sportstracker
would like to use:
Wellness Diary

Submitted by iivo on 09-12-2009 15:15.

it's clearly stated both on phone prompts and in manuals that data traffic when roaming is costly.

I don't remember the default settings but if their not set to prompt when roaming they should be

my experience with the a-gps is that it generate a modest amonunt of data so how your managed to rack up a hughe bill just because of it i doubt.

When it comes the street map you can check wich cities are well covered and there is a discaimer on the web. I also bought the license and it dosent cover all my cities either but i did expect it to either so im not dissapointed

tall buildings interfair with any gps no matter who made it, so does mountains, weather conditions, and militairy installments. Driving past the nato hq of europe my gps wen blank...

Now when it comes to buying a smartphone that is done and works 100% from the day it is launched... Good luck with that :

--- N95 31.0.0.17 | N97 2.0.17 ---