Sygic - 1 week free trial (premium traffic and navigation) and heavy discount

[Uriel]

If anyone fancies trying it Sygic for Android (possibly Windows or iOS - I've not checked) currently has a free trial of their full premium product including traffic from Tomtom.

What also seems a bit of a bargain is they have their Premium + Lifetime Traffic version discounted until the 15th of Jan. I think that's £19.99 for Europe or £24.99 for worldwide (23.99 & 29.99 in Euros).

Given it's the same traffic as Tomtom and Magic Earth Pro, that's a bit of a bargain for someone who will use it in the long term.

I've started my trial and it's vastly improved since last time I tried Sygic (the routing used to be terrible but looks far more sensible now). The ETAs it gives are perhaps a little over-optimistic comparedt to Tomtom, Google and Magic Earth (which are all pretty close) but otherwise., based on first impressions of this version, I'm impressed. Like Magic Earth it detects traffic a long way away, unlike Tomtom Go itself which uses a radius of about 80 miles - so it has potential to be better for longer journeys than Tomtom + Google (neither of which accounts for distant traffic).

For any existing Sygic users - I'm very interested to know how it behaves if it detects a faster route during your journey. Does it change over hands free or does it require a screen press? If it's completely hands free I'll probably purchase it (Edit: Sadly, I 've just tested a route through a know jam while it expired and it informs you about the faster route but doesn't select it automatically. Does the alternative route display on screen when you drive past like in Google maps?)

Of late Tomtom Go and Magic Earth have been a bit flakey so I'm considering alternatives. Tomtom's been missing traffic incidents that are present in its own info and Magic Earth has never been quite right since they changed it from Route 66 Navigate - they seem to be going through cycles of breaking and fixing features with every update. If there's one thing you need a nav app to be it's predictable and reliable.

- If anyone is wondering why I pay to use these apps instead of Google / Waze - they use far less data and Tomtom's traffic info (in all 3 apps) is still ahead of the others (although Google and Waze have made vast improvments over the last couple of years)

 

[Uriel]

I see it allows sound off or alerts only.

Given it's long-range traffic detection ability, I'm quite tempted to run this in the foreground with sound on Alerts Alerts only and Tomtom in the background for voice directions (it works on my Galaxy Alpha but I guess it could be a struggle on lesser specced phones)

That would work around the no automatic redirection issue in Sygic (tomtom reroutes automatically when running in the background) but still allow me to see the Traffic incidents that currently aren't making it into Tomtom Go.

By the way - I often run different nav apps concurrently to compare routing, traffic avoidance behaviour etc. For some reason Google Maps has been having positioning problems when running alongside other navigation software recently but most of them play nicely together. Being able to turn the sounds on and off in app is handy for that. It avoids the 'two women arguing' effect.

 

[Uriel]

How long ago? It's had an interface change since last time I saw it. If the routes were in purple last time you saw it, it's had a complete overhaul.

Runs very smoothly on my Galaxy Alpha, even with a 2nd nav app running in the background.

Edit: The makers of Magic Earth Pro replied to my query about it not always picking the fastest route. They apparently have a trade off between time saving and length of detour. They explain - if travel time difference is more than 5 minutes the fastest route will be selected. If the difference is less than 5 minutes, it will factor in the length of the journey at an assumed standard speed to avoid big detours. I can see the benefit of this because it used to do odd things like diverting off congested motorways onto slip roads and back. Hopefully that should solve it.

 

[Uriel]

It frustrates me enormously that neither Google nor Tomtom seems to have a comprehensive live database of road closures. It's a lottery based on where you are in the country, and which local authority you're dealing with as to how complete local road closures are (it's usually not bad for the Highways England strategic road network but Tomtom update in a more timely fashion for that and Google has a nasty habit of blindly ignoring road closures until you're right upon them).

Tomtom (and hence, Sygic and Magic Earth Pro too) recently started getting road closure info from Elgin / roadworks.org but there's a bit of a bug in the system in that if they have a road closure on a local authority controlled road, it will often only show in one direction when both directions are actually closed. I've had a good complain to Tomtom about this but no sign of them fixing it. Google and Waze also get roadworks.org data but the implementation of it is really inconsistent. Often you'll see text about a road being closed but you won't be routed around it.

does the trial have Live Traffic updates too?

Yes.

 

[Uriel]

im travelling tomorrow and will give this a try instead of using Google Maps

are the speed camera alerts accurate?

The database is the same as Tomtom's, which is pretty accurate. Tomtom Go has a better implementation for average speed zones and it will measure your average speed when in them.

A nice thing about Sygic is you can select your own sound (including setting a text to speech message) for traffic, speed cameras, sharp turns and the speed limit warning (which you can alter the threshold for separately for urban and extra urban areas). So if you want it to say "******* hell - hit the brakes!" when you're 20mph over the speed limit, you can tell it to.

Edit: Just for an experiment I have Sygic and Magic Earth Pro apps currently running on my phone through a traffic congested area - Tomtom and Google have the same route planned running in a browser on the PC.

Sygic's arrival time is ludicrously optimistic - about 10 minutes quicker than the others for a similar route. I suspect their maps lack Tomtom's historic average speed profiles. Sygic tells you when faster routes are available but you need to select them via 2 screen taps.

Magic Earth Pro has an irritating habit of telling you repeatedly a faster route is available but not switching to it if it's a longer route less than 5 minutes faster than the current route. Confusingly it shows you the routes but doesn't select them while they're on screen (it gives you 20 seconds to tap on them, when first announced. It will then randomly reroute with just a brief 'calculating' message on screen and no audible warning (presumably this happens automatically if a time saving greater than 5 minutes or a route that is both shorter and faster is available).

From previous experience Tomtom Go (if set to automatic) constantly checks for the fastest route and always tries to stay on it. It doesn't warn about re-routing, which can be confusing if it changes its mind after voice directions have been given. Tomtom also has options for button pressing and 'decide by steering', when it gives a 'ping' to indicate a faster route is available but then shows you the alternative route on screen as a green line navigation view.

You'll all be familiar with Google, which shows alternative routes in grey during navigation and informs you via audio if a faster route is available.

 

[Uriel]

oh yes that is a pain, if you stick to the speedlimit the estimated time works, obvious thats not accurate.

is there any that has everything? decent estimated time, live traffic, full uk map downloads so no internet required. Shows 3 route options, rerouting for the live traffic etc.

Tomtom Go has all those.

Unfortunately there's currently a bug where some traffic events (you can see then in MyDrive.tomtom.com) don't make it into the app. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon. Similar things have happened before when there's a mismatch in map version between the current app and TT's traffic server. Hopefully a map release or app update will sort it out soon.

Magic Earth Pro also has all of them. It used to be consistently brilliant but the developers changed the name from Route 66 Navigate in the summer and since then the quality of updates has been up and down like a yoyo. The first Magic Earth Pro release was terrible. They're nearly back to being as good as Route 66 was but my current annoyance is it keeps nagging you about marginally faster routes (less than 5 minutes) without automatically switching. Back when it was Route 66 the behaviour was more obvious and it would just pick the fastest route identified all the time (but that did sometimes lead to very pointless minor detours - so I can see why they've made the change).

Basically - of the two - Tomtom Go (when fully functional) is better for journeys less than 40 minutes. It reacts instantly to a changing traffic situation and usually provides me with the clearest routes but it disregards traffic jams greater than 40 minutes away and the furtherst closure information is about 80 miles from your location. Magic Earth Pro is better for journeys longer than 40 minutes. It takes traffic jams and road closures into account for the length of any sensible journey in this country. You'll hit sea in any direction before the traffic info runs out.

Tomtom Go and Magic Earth Pro both seem to estimate a high proportion of my journey times to within minutes of the actual driving time (although I'm not the world's fastest driver and for Tomtom Go - this obviously only applies to within it's traffic horizon radius).

The main disadvantage all these Tomtom based solutions (TT Go, Magic Earth Pro, Sygic) have is that map updates are still quarterly at best. By contrast Google and Waze usually have the maps updated within a few days to weeks of a change being made on the ground.

 

[Uriel]

I asked Sygic customer support about fully automated, hands free, redirection around traffic. They indicate that it's under consideration for the future but that they don't have a timescale.

I'm leaning towards not purchasing it too. It won't replace Tomtom Go or Magic Earth Pro as my primary nav app given its current feature set. I've bought apps based on promised features that were never delivered before and don't intend to do so again.

On my commute this morning I spotted some routing problems. I'm about 90% sure that it doesn't have Tomtom's speed profiles data in the maps and seems to have some very low turn time penalties as well. Routing speed estimates are almost certainly based on speed limits not measured historic speeds. If the speed limits are wrong it messes up the routing too (there's a 30mph road that it incorrectly has as 60 and it always picks it over an adjacent slightly shorter alternative that the other apps all go for.

 

[Uriel]

Another weird thing is I had my phone connected via BT to the car, everytime I had a notification it initiated a phone call for some reason to provide the instructions, not sure if this is the app or the cars BT implementation.

Try going into Menu > Settings > Notification and Sounds > bluetooth.

You can select between:
- Always play on phone speaker (experimental)
- Play over bluetooth
- Play as bluetooth phone call

 

[Uriel]

Yes, we've been through this before. But most people don't actually try out different apps. I regularly use most of them - and Google doesn't handle routing around traffic incidents well enough for me (although both the info and the routing have vastly improved in recent years - the actual info is very close to Tomtom these days). For lot's of other stuff (search, POIs, OS integration, map updates etc etc), Google works better than the Tomtom derivatives.

Sygic, like Waze, does include user reports at the scene. But yeah - based on my usage so far I wouldn't choose it over Google Maps.

Waze is very reliant on a critical mass of users where you are. If you've got them it's very good indeed. If not - it's crap. But occasionally the routing is sometimes utterly bonkers and I just don't trust it a lot of the time. For traffic flow info it uses a very similar system to Tomtom , who just have a lot more probes (AKA floating car data) than Waze so jams are detected faster and disappear quicker once they've cleared. From my own usage, most of the time Tomtom's traffic more closely resembles the situation on the ground than Waze's

An advantage for me in the offline mapping apps is I'm on PAYG. Even on 3's penny a megabyte costs that makes one of the offline apps that just uses data for traffic cheaper than Google or Waze for me. Google's cache system helps keep the costs down there though compared to a few years ago. With magic earth pro - data usage is very low if you use the standard maps. If you use topo maps it uses additional data that puts it about on par with Google maps.

To be honest - a very high proportion of the time Google and Tomtom give identical routes, even with traffic. Google will be utterly fine for most people's journeys. Waze is a bit more prone to random meandering.

In terms of where Google and Tomtom Go differ - tomtom is more likely to go 'off piste' to route around traffic indicents, where as Google prefers main roads. Tomtom 'spots' potential routes around traffic that Google doesn't detect (which is the big attraction for me). Both are crap when it comes to early selection of routes to avoid distant incidents (Magic Earth Pro is your friend here).

People can decide for themselves however. You can try all of them for free. Tomtom Go is free for 50 miles per month. Magic Earth Pro has a 30 day free trial. Sygic has a week's free trial. None of them are perfect though - and at the current rate of improvment I think Google Maps is most likely to end up being the best at everything.

 

[Uriel]

Update: Given the week's trial - Sygic isn't going to displace any of my regular navigation apps any time soon.

There's a lot to like about it with some great features that I would love to see on other apps (love being able to set your own TTS warnings for things like cameras and the speed limit). However the big let-downs for me are still routing, ETA calculation and lack of ability to reroute around traffic that's detected during the journey without button presses. Those things are all key features in a nav app for me - and areas where Sygic isn't as good as free options like Google Maps and Waze.

Given I've been doing a lot of vs testing of the apps over the past week, I'm revising my recommendations on best nav app.

Best all rounder - Google Maps. It's just competent at everything. The voice directions including lane guidance, consistently up-to date mapping and visually showing you alternative routes with time calculation during driving are all very good features.

Best for short journeys: Google Maps.
This is mainly down to a bug in Tomtom Go that means it currently misses a small proportion of traffic events from it's own traffic service. Once the bug's fixed I'm switching back to Tomtom - but for someone that doesn't own it I'm not sure it's worth subscribing for those extra few minutes it may occasionally save you. If you're on PAYG and want to keep Data down, Tomtom or Magic Earth Pro are easier recommendations. The latter just isn't as versatile as Google maps or as slick as Tomtom. Google also has the big advantage that its maps are usually the most up-to date

Best for long journeys: Magic Earth Pro. Magic Earth Pro and Sygic both benefit from route planning including traffic for the full length of any realistic journey. Tomtom, and Google ignore closures more than about an hour or so away, leaving you a nasty surprise part way through your journey. Magic Earth Pro takes it over Sygic because of the more realistic ETA calculations and driver friendly hands-free rerouting around traffic. Also - if you are aware of a road closure that's missed by the traffic service, avoiding part of your route couldn't be easier. Just tap the point of your route you want to avoid in map view and Magic Earth Pro will find another way around.

Co-Pilot and Navigon still lose out because the traffic information is just not good enough. It's far less detailed and covers fewer roads than what you get free with Google or Waze. Waze still sends me on a pointless magical mystery tour too often to be trustworthy - and it also often fails to detect closures that Tomtom picks up (frequently just giving you a pointless text warning and not routing around them - or getting the info much later than Tomtom).

Edit: I'm going to caveat the Google Maps recommendation with a mention that it has crashed on my phone or had issues with delayed positioning a couple of times. In my experience Google usually resolve such issues quickly though.

 

[Uriel]

Will be sticking to Google Maps, tried and tested, if only it had instant speed and speed cameras.

There are a few free speed camera apps out there. Tomtom do one (probably same camera database as sygic). It uses a fair bit of data but will run in the background alongside other apps.

You can also set Waze running in the background not in navigation mode and it can give voice alerts for stuff (but Waze being Waze, it's a bit random).

 

[Uriel]

So - despite the above - I ended up buying it.

I still won't be using it as my primary nav app. However - if you have a Samsung phone (I have a Galaxy Alpha) it will run in multi-window.

That means I'll be running it alongside Magic Earth Pro or Google Maps (both also work with multi-window) as an alerts app. Just plan the route, set voice to alerts only (without directions) and it can provide alerts for speeding, speed cameras, traffic on route, faster routes detected, tight bends and level crossings - with all set to whatever text to speech phrase or random sounds you might fancy.

It clearly displays the speed limit, and a route bar at the base with traffic incidents indicated as red or yellow bars for the full journey. Upcoming speed limit changes are shown very clearly.

I just wish you could turn off ETA. Ran it today on my commute with Magic Earth Pro. It's about a 10 mile journey - and it predicted 5 minutes faster than Magic Earth Pro. I arrived within a minute of the predicted Magic Earth Pro time.

Running both together - it was clear that Magic Earth Pro had realistic turn time penalties at junctions and Sygic didn't . Sygic has suggested a couple of detours around traffic onto minor roads that Magic Earth Pro didnt' - but given the lack of turn penalties I doubt they would save much time. Magic Earth Pro has managed one more significant detour around traffic - a longer route on main roads - that Sygic missed.

If you don't want to run two sets of nav apps on screen you can adjust the multi-window sizes - or Sygic can be set to run in HUD mode and it will just show the speed limit, your current speed, the next turn and an ETA - on a black background.

If anyone has been wondering how I've informed my opinions of these Nav apps over the last few years - that's it. Head to head testing at the same time, on the same route, usually on the same phone. Google Maps, Magic Earth Pro (and Magic Earth, which uses Openstreetmap istead of Tomtom maps but does still use Tomtom traffic data) and Sygic are the only ones I've found that will run in Samsung multi-window though. Other testing (with Tomtom Go, Waze, Navigon, Co-Pilot etc) has been done with one app in the foreground and the other set to voice directions and alerts in the background.

 

[Uriel]

also noticed the speed camera POI were not very accurate either..

From the cameras I've driven past so far I'd say that they have the sides of the road switched. Probably a localisation issue with us driving on the left. I've put in an email to Sygic support to mention it.