24 Hours in Baja California with 640XL and WM10

[Jakoh]

I went to Mexico for a road trip over thanksgiving with my WM10 phone and offline maps of California and Mexico and the results are below:

Maps:
Car navigation worked very well. But the new "directions" screen is confusing, I accidentally ending up closing the apps on numerous occasions from some of the screens. I also liked the old method where you could scroll to the next instruction and it would snap to that instruction and the maps would move along with it, it is no longer possible to do that. They take away a mature product, Here, and replace it with a brand new UI that isn't that good. Zooming in/out of maps is impossible if you are driving and half of the screen is taken up with nonsense info from the directions, pinch zoom isn't great if you f'in only have one usable hand, bring the zoom buttons back, like Here. I also could not get my favorites from Here maps, of which i have hundreds. The routes choosen were generally very good. Accuracy of the maps is good.

Maps Favorites:
I added a few favorites as i was driving around, they had mysteriously disappeared by the next morning.

Cross Device:
I shared a bunch of places that i wanted to vising using my Win10 laptop from Maps to OneNote for office 2010, and I couldn't find them in Mexico! Big time problem. Sure this was an oversight on my part, but i expected this shiz to just work. I need to find out what happened to these.

Offline Music:
Bluetooth music worked pretty good and the battery life was really superb. I did find a bug, when Cortana announces a text over bluetooth it kills the playlist and/or doesn't turn the music back on.

Search results:
Microsoft adds tons of results to their Maps search (from other sources such as yelp, etc) which aren't available offline. This was a big disappointment, when not known and in the middle of nowhere. The list of results shrinks considerably compared to when online. I wonder how google maps does with search result on their new offline feature.

A weak wi-fi signal drained my battery overnight.

Translate: even bigger disappointment offline, it does a great job online, but offline it just sucks. For example Empana, shows up online, but not offline. It still cant find the word Decantos or decanto, cuz its missing a space in between. The biggest challenge of trying to translate another language is deciphering and typing what is spoken. Translate offline is a just a crappy dictionary. I do love the new interface.

 

[anon(3463402)]

Thanks for sharing this info with us.

 

[midnightfrolic]

I went to Mexico for a road trip over thanksgiving with my WM10 phone and offline maps of California and Mexico and the results are below:

Maps:
Car navigation worked very well. But the new "directions" screen is confusing, I accidentally ending up closing the apps on numerous occasions from some of the screens. I also liked the old method where you could scroll to the next instruction and it would snap to that instruction and the maps would move along with it, it is no longer possible to do that. They take away a mature product, Here, and replace it with a brand new UI that isn't that good. Zooming in/out of maps is impossible if you are driving and half of the screen is taken up with nonsense info from the directions, pinch zoom isn't great if you f'in only have one usable hand, bring the zoom buttons back, like Here. I also could not get my favorites from Here maps, of which i have hundreds. The routes choosen were generally very good. Accuracy of the maps is good.

Maps Favorites:
I added a few favorites as i was driving around, they had mysteriously disappeared by the next morning.

Cross Device:
I shared a bunch of places that i wanted to vising using my Win10 laptop from Maps to OneNote for office 2010, and I couldn't find them in Mexico! Big time problem. Sure this was an oversight on my part, but i expected this shiz to just work. I need to find out what happened to these.

Offline Music:
Bluetooth music worked pretty good and the battery life was really superb. I did find a bug, when Cortana announces a text over bluetooth it kills the playlist and/or doesn't turn the music back on.

Search results:
Microsoft adds tons of results to their Maps search (from other sources such as yelp, etc) which aren't available offline. This was a big disappointment, when not known and in the middle of nowhere. The list of results shrinks considerably compared to when online. I wonder how google maps does with search result on their new offline feature.

A weak wi-fi signal drained my battery overnight.

Translate: even bigger disappointment offline, it does a great job online, but offline it just sucks. For example Empana, shows up online, but not offline. It still cant find the word Decantos or decanto, cuz its missing a space in between. The biggest challenge of trying to translate another language is deciphering and typing what is spoken. Translate offline is a just a crappy dictionary. I do love the new interface.

I have the 640XL as well. Runs fairly well.

MAPS: I like Win10 Mobile Maps as well. The new changes were not apparent to me, but struggling through it. There is a reason the "NEXT TURN" is so large - makes it easier to see at a glance when driving. If you swipe left/right horizontally it will show you the next turn and the next if you keep swiping horizontally. If you swipe vertically downwards within the "NEXT TURN" field, it bring a drop down with the directions list. Very handy to plan your next turns. e.g. get in the left lane to prepare to turn left. You swipe up/down again to close the direction list drop down menu. There are settings for avoidances - avoid tolls roads, dirt roads, freeway,...etc.

CROSS DEVICE: I have not shared anything like that, but sounds interesting.

MUSIC: Win10M will pause music to prioritize all other audio, be it Cortana, notifications, maps directions, etc. I wish it would just continue playing all the audio stream together instead of having to pause the music. Total buzz kill.

SEARCH RESULTS & TRANSLATE: Virtually every aspect of the phone requires internet access nowadays. Hell, MAPS often times cannot find your starting location and/or destination without internet. Thus, it will not navigate.

WIFI: It's one of the biggest battery drainers, trying to keep an internet connection alive. You can try the 'Battery Saver" feature for a few nights and see if that helps. Otherwise, I'd just turn off wifi and or cellular data. I plug mine in every night anyways.

 

[Jakoh]

Ahh yes, in the navigation you can swipe left and right at the top banner to see next or previous step. Thats good to know, you used to be able to do that in the "Directions" screen.
As far as the music thing, the music ceases after the announcement is over, you have to go back and restart it.
I checked Google maps offline, i would search for things and they would appear on the list under the search, but when i would execute the search it wouldnt show anything on the map. but in either case, google showed more businesses when you would zoom into the map.

COME ON Microsoft, put your cloud muscle to collect information.

I have the 640XL as well. Runs fairly well.

MAPS: I like Win10 Mobile Maps as well. The new changes were not apparent to me, but struggling through it. There is a reason the "NEXT TURN" is so large - makes it easier to see at a glance when driving. If you swipe left/right horizontally it will show you the next turn and the next if you keep swiping horizontally. If you swipe vertically downwards within the "NEXT TURN" field, it bring a drop down with the directions list. Very handy to plan your next turns. e.g. get in the left lane to prepare to turn left. You swipe up/down again to close the direction list drop down menu. There are settings for avoidances - avoid tolls roads, dirt roads, freeway,...etc.

CROSS DEVICE: I have not shared anything like that, but sounds interesting.

MUSIC: Win10M will pause music to prioritize all other audio, be it Cortana, notifications, maps directions, etc. I wish it would just continue playing all the audio stream together instead of having to pause the music. Total buzz kill.

SEARCH RESULTS & TRANSLATE: Virtually every aspect of the phone requires internet access nowadays. Hell, MAPS often times cannot find your starting location and/or destination without internet. Thus, it will not navigate.

WIFI: It's one of the biggest battery drainers, trying to keep an internet connection alive. You can try the 'Battery Saver" feature for a few nights and see if that helps. Otherwise, I'd just turn off wifi and or cellular data. I plug mine in every night anyways.

 

[npoe]

I like more the Maps app than Here Drive+ but I agree about the results without data connection. I haven't done side by side comparison but from memory I remember Here Drive+ was better. The lack of route options is a down, you cannot tell the app to not use toll roads although it gives you several options at the same time... sometimes it doesn't show the one you want.

Onenote has never failed to me since 2012 that I think I started to really use it for everything. Before that it was just something that I wanted to use but never managed to; like an agenda or something.

I haven't tried the music over bluetooth and GPS at the same time. My wife hates my music and she has been always with me whenever I have traveled by car, so just one at once.