[D/\SH]

Originally Posted by IT_Architect

I appreciate your help.

1. The 10 Mile cloverleaf is at least 3 to 4 years old, maybe even 5. It used to be a left turn. Sprint/Telenav gets this wrong goes for the illegal left hand turn.

2. I-196 toward Holland is .4 further, but also 5 minutes faster in the middle of the night, let alone during the day, with the S curve and 28th traffic. Let's say you could make a case for 131 to 28th. (Google and Navigon?) Sprint/Telenav, after it takes you down the wrong ramp on 10 Mile, drags you through the 131 S-Curve, it has you get off at Hall Street, and down Grandville Avenue to Chicago drive to get to that area, which is the Grandville/Wyoming border area. I haven't found Sprint/Telenav to be trustworthy except on very simple and very old routes.

The only question I might have is how well the Navigon lane information and road signs work. It looks good in the advertising.

Summary:
Why: I got motivated to do this when I got forced into buying a new Touch Pro 2 phone. Sprint / Telenav is free for me. It should be up to date, because it is online. In addition to not being able to use your phone, that one unnecessarily ran me through the middle of town to get to the expressway, and recommended turns that have been illegal for years. At one point I came to the end of the road in a new residential area, and it asked me to continue for another 10th of a mile, while 50 feet in front of the car was a woods full of 60 year old trees. It got me to thinking, the reason people need mapping and navigation software is because they don't know the area, and maps can be tough sometimes, especially if there is a lot of traffic. However, since we aren't an expert in the area, we are not really in a position to judge how well it did. I realized that I actually didn't know which software I should roll the dice with when I find myself in an area that I don't know. Navigation software makes some pretty bold routing claims and there is a lot of golly gee whiz ads. When the navigation software gets us there, we are inclined to rate it highly. I love the idea of software that shows me street signs before I get there and guides me into the correct lane, provided the route makes sense. So I tried routes within about a 50 mile radius, and ones that were somewhat complex.

Results: Finding map and navigation software for Windows Mobile from companies that are real for North America was not easy. It narrowed down to Bing, Garmin XT with new maps, Google Maps, Navigon, Spint/TeleNav, and TomTom. Bing, Garmin, and Navigon all use NAVTEQ even though they come up with different routes. NAVTEQ is 85% of the market, now owned by Nokia as I recall. Google has their own, and TomTom bought TeleAtlas. I have hours on the phone with people trying different routes for me. This particular route was especially problematic.

I had never used Bing maps, desktop or Mobile, and I knew it was new, so I wasn't expecting much. I was surprised when I discovered I could drag routes as with Google, but it also tagged the route hints so when I couldn't quite get it right with the mouse, I could simply delete the bad hint. Normally when that happens to me in Google Maps, I clear them and start over. However, Bing mobile has the same limitation as Google Maps on their mobile version. You cannot drag routes. I also found Bing was at least as good at finding local attractions as Google. Even printed directions from a desktop make more sense with Bing. They give you barriers such as if you get to <business or street name> you've gone too far, or for turns, look for the BP station on the corner, etc. YMMV, but the reason I'm talking about Bing, is Bing was the only one that could consistently come up with routes that made sense, plus it has all the GPS navigation features and TTS. It's also more likely to change on you throughout the day based on traffic conditions. Because it was so good, when I ran across one route that was slightly different than what I thought it should be, I analyzed it and realized if I considered the improved odds of catching the light green on the major road, and about 1/3 of a mile less in residential, it was better to go further down and taking a side-street. Of the off-line software, the old Garmin XT with new maps are the best so far.

I don't have enough on Navigon for form an opinion. I have a lot of e-mails back and forth with Navigon. They would never do my routes, in fact this is my first reply on any of all of my requests, and D/\SH post seems to indicate the reason. I asked Navigon if it's true that the maps they were using for North America for MobileNavigator are Q4 2009, or if that's just something they just hadn't updated on their website. The official reply is that is accurate, and they could not give me an estimate of when new maps would be available. They have a "Coming Soon" on their site for purchasing map updates. Still it has me looking over my shoulder because managing lanes in a big city is a big deal.

So where does that leave me? Logically, if I want to take calls en-route, I need to have Bing to pick the route beforehand, and force Garmin or Navigon to recalculate at strategic points where I stray from their route. This is not where I expected to end up. I don't know yet how well it will work.

Thanks for your help!

from what i have seen in the recent install and use of the newest maps is that they are very up to date. on all the navigation systems that you mentioned and more they still do not have metro health side streets or anything around them since from before the construction and groundbreaking in 2003. navigon has them in there and the nice feature is that it also shows icons for all things your near including starbucks, restaurants, and more. the only downside to this is that it seems to be only the large chains and not the hole in the wall restaurants with great food that all want to find. i didnt have the chance to take your exact path but i noticed a huge difference in paths that gave me trouble in the past such as from my work metro health hospital to the sprint store on wilson next to the D&W across from the mall. it would always take me the long way through massive amounts of traffic down 44th street thus hitting every light. during my lunch break today i tested it to the location and it took me the desired and known better route of taking 54th (turns into gezon at byron center ave) straight through the light at the marathon until you hit the first light at ivanrest. than it has you go down ivanrest and take the correct Right turn and to do a michigan u-turn. after i normally did that with past gps programs it always got you going in an endless circle with glitches since new roads were built. to my surprise though it correctly plotted it all giving me faith in GPS programs once again when im in an area that im not familiar with. the cool part about the icons for gas stations, restaurants, etc is that they are on the map so you can scroll through on a trip and see what is near you or coming up. if you would like one of these days send me a pm for my number and you can scope it out up at metro health.... i work 2nd shifts and would be more than willing to let you check it out on my device even though im using an evo but the maps and settings should be the same.im going to do a few other tests as well and see how it works. one of these days if im in the area i will test the end part where it messes up (if it is near the hospital) and see what it does for me. let me know and send me a pm if you need the number. hope this helps you out some.