best android satnav

rjk

rjk

rjk

OcUK Staff
Joined
8 Aug 2007
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used to use navfree but its lack of speed camera support is annoying.

have tried sygic and copilot this week and both seem good

i am not adverse to paying for a sat nav app that works well and is updated often.

what are you guys using and why?

some info about speed camera detection and overall functionality would be good, especially how often updates are rolled out.

whats the most complete android package?
 
I just downloaded a new one called 'M8' least I think it's new.

It's free and seems social and decent, shows places to visits with reviews and stuff
 
ideally i am looking for the closest thing to a standalone satnav with features like traffic updates, route redirects, speed camera warnings, speed limit warnings.
 
agreed but i cannot see it being better than the likes of copilot or sygic for the money.

half way through the sygic trial at the moment and really liking it, may have to give copilot a shot before parting with any cash though.


navfree is quite good but has let me down a few times and its lack of speed camera detection is a deal break unfortunately.
 
Another vote for Copilot here, does all the things you're after (plus some pointless social networking twaddle) and very easy to use as well.
 
rotters said:
I'm using the satnav on the phone are these stand alone satnav apps much better?
Click to expand...

Much better, for one there is hardly no data usage or preloading your route. You get the whole UK maps with co-pilot, with navigation built into android phones it uses data to get the map and directions, I found it was unusable is rural locations do to not having a data signal. The user face and options are second to none, it functions exactly like a standalone satnav. You get speed camera alerts, live traffic news and a load more features and settings.

Well worth the 20 pounds or so it costs.
 
After coming from a iPhone with tomtom I hated the andriod offerings. Sygic was the best offline nav but some of the map was really outdated. Stuck with the google navigation and after a while of getting used to it I find it great, the only niggle is the route is blue and the motorway is a different shade blue so can be hard to have a quick look.

I use it all over the uk and have only had to revert to sygic omce when I was in the middle of nowhere. The free live traffic is great.
 
Currently using Google Navigation. It offers everything I need. Good routes, alternatives if I want to, live traffic updates and reliable mapping. Only bad thing as some have said is the need for a connection but that is half true. When I was in Spain for vacation and didn't want to roam since it's silly expensive, what I would do is I told the app where I wanted to go, it came up with a route and the I turned my data off. The GPS signal was on of course and this provided me with all the direction I needed to get to where I wanted to.

Having used a TomTom in car hire mostly, I can honestly say the only upside was the lane switching is much more thorough than in Google's for example if you don't know the roads sometimes you have to get into specific lanes and TomTom mentions that, while Google does not. Also speed limits. Apart from these it does not serve anything more for going around in unknown territories.
Nowadays when I am hiring a car I always use my S2.
 
If you go into GMaps and press Options, you have the ability make a large area available offline. The limit is about 86MB worth but that gave me probably around 100 square miles... You just use pinch to zoom to zoom out until it says "area too large" then zoom in a bit till it lets you save it.

Just checked and you can overlap the sections to have the entire country if you want.
 
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well i tried sygic today properly. admittedly on a known route but it felt laggy. the directions werent in real time and the arrow wasnt making the turns in unison with the vehicle, quite frustrating. although it notified me of speed cams and breaching the speed limit very well.

i would love to try copilot but there seems to be no trial option.

is copilot really as good as a standard sat nav?

if so, i may just buy it and try it out.
 
Another vote for Copilot here. Been using it for years, starting on an old Windows Mobile phone, then moving to Android.

I've not yet updated to the latest version though. You used to be able to get a trial with a really small map area to try it out with. Not sure if they still do that though.
 
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