I emailed Nokia as to why the Lumia 520 and Lumia 720 do not come with Here Drive + but Lumia 620 does which is cheaper than Lumia 720 and received a reply from the head of Here maps and Here Drive.
thank you very much for the mail you recently sent to (removed).
My name is (removed), and at Nokia I?m responsible for our Windows Phone location applications like HERE Maps and HERE Drive.
I?m very happy to hear that you?re interested in the Lumia 720 ? a device that is also among my personal favorites within our Lumia range with its combination of great design and powerful features and capabilities.
When it comes to the navigation experience on it, you?re right: The Lumia 720 comes with HERE Drive which means that is offering a free navigation experience with full offline turn-by-turn guidance in one selected country or region ? dependent on the SIM-card you?re inserting into the device before first-time use. So if you?d buy a Lumia 720 overseas and insert your SIM-card from New Zealand, you will get a license for free turn-by-turn navigation in New Zealand.
As you may have noticed, both HERE Drive and HERE Drive+ are currently still in beta. Once we will promote them from beta to commercial status, it will be possible to upgrade from HERE Drive to HERE Drive+ which is offering a global navigation license for around 100 countries.
So far we haven?t announced any details about timing and pricing yet, but we?re planning this step for the coming months. And even though you will have to pay for the upgrade from Drive to Drive+, you will save more money on roaming costs and data charges when travelling abroad thanks to our leading true offline capabilities than you will have to invest for the worldwide navigation license. This is unmatched by any ?free? mobile navigation solution on the market today.
At the same time, the Lumia 720 also already comes with HERE Maps pre-installed. With that you have the opportunity to download all available country maps to your phone and use all the features of HERE Maps, including walk navigation, drive and transit routes.
The reason why we?ve decided to include HERE Drive on the Lumia 720 and 520 while the Lumia 620 comes with HERE Drive+ is the following:
Each phone is a unique combination of experiences to target a distinct price point and market opportunity. To reach the targeted price point for the Lumia 520, our most affordable Lumia to date, we?ve decided to include HERE Drive, while with the Lumia 620 we felt that we had the freedom to include HERE Drive+ and still be able to reach its targeted price point. The Lumia 720 then comes with a lot of innovation in areas like imaging and wireless charging, and including a local navigation experience instead of a global one allowed us to meet its targeted price point while still providing a great location experience.
Kind regards,
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