Nokia Here Drive Experiences

[Sabre Wulf]

What is the general experience of this app for car navigation? The only thing I needed that I could not find in the menus, was a 'find nearest petrol station' function. Then I tried to type 'petrol' as a destination, and it found nearby stations. So that seems fine. I would need a car holder that can hold my 925 in landscape, then it could totally replace my sick TomTom. Anyone doing this?

 

[Jonathan Piferrer]

You can set up: "Show/hide gas stations, hotels, parking, etc" from the menu... So when you see a map, you can choose to see or hide all that icons...

In my case, i watch the map when i'm driving, and gas stations appears on map, so its easy to go directly...

Regards!

 

[o0Nighthawk0o]

Yup. I have used Drive+ on a few occasions. Most recently a trip from IN to CT and back. It did a really good job especially on the way back to IN as we stopped by the Flight 93 Memorial in PA. The only issue was in OH on a state road. For about 40 miles at every exit or intersection it would tell me to keep left or continue straight. Really wasn't a problem but really annoying after a while.

I use a universal car mount that will open far enough to hold my L920. It's a windshield mount and will rotate between portrait and landscape. I bought it at WalMart.

 

[Sabre Wulf]

I'll give it a try. Just need a holder. Am in Europe so no Walmart, but will find one somewhere...

 

[Paritosh Rai]

I use the CAPDASE mount - I have been using it for the past 8 months and it's been working fine. It's a wind-shield suction based mount and works well with my lumia 800. It also offers the flexibility of portrait and landscape mode.

 

[Sabre Wulf]

I got the Nokia CR-123 holder which is great, and so far using Here Drive+ has been really good. Was using a TomTom Go 1000 previously, but after 2 years the battery is useless, and their online service (which you pay for) is never connecting. So goodbye TomTom (already said goodbye to Garmin before that) and hello Nokia.

My feeling is the likes of TomTom and Garmin must now be shaking in their boots - Smartphones now have the cpu power, graphics, software maturity, online presence and screen real estate to be a total replacement for these 'dedicated' devices.

 

[Schnuffi]

I have a Nokia 620 and tried drive for the first time last night was impressed by the way it worked much better than the navi I have because its map is like 5 years old. The only thing I don't like
to much is we have tons of bike paths here in SW Germany and many of them are not shown on the map.

 

[MKairys]

The one thing that seems glaringly missing is a list of the turns and such. I've tried using Bing maps for that and Here for the voice nav but they don't always give me the same route. I also wonder about being able to select from alternate routes. Isn't that kind of basic functionality Here is missing?

 

[enomam]

I find it works quite well, but it's "real time" traffic information is fairly limited (here in Melbourne, Australia, especially compared with google's services), and it doesn't seem to "route around" congestion.
There are a few usability issues, like the fact that the time isn't displayed while the app is running, and in the search bar, your favourites don't appear (for example, if you wanted to set your deistination to "home", it will try to search for home). I think that's an issue with Here maps in general (have you tried finding directions from anywhere other than your current location ?).

It is a nice application though, I think it's some of the backend services that need some work.

 

[michail71]

My biggest complaint is trying to get the My Commute feature to work when I need it to. It has a mind of it's own.

 

[freshair]

Terrible compared to Google Maps.

Especially not being able to view the route list.

 

[michail71]

Here works, but it's kind of funky and lacking at times. I've been thinking of paying for the Garmin app. With the Microsoft pre-order credit for the Lumia 1520 I might get that. I just don't trust Garmin to keep up on the app and given the price that makes me worry.

With Here being integrated into some cars hopefully it will get better.

 

[Sabre Wulf]

I am also trying out Copilot and it works nicely so far too. Only criticism is that routing to a new location while driving, usually petrol stations, is a lot of taps compared to Here.