Android Sat Nav Apps

Here's a comparison and mini-review of some Sat Nav apps for the T-Mobile G1, HTC Magic, Hero and others running the Android platform. Some of these apps are free, some have a free trial, and some are paid-for sat nav applications. Until fairly recently, decent sat-nav software for Android was quite thin on the ground, but now we are spoilt for choice. The Android platform has always had the excellent Google Maps application built-in, but if you want turn-by-turn navigation, you will have to install a third-party sat-nav program such as one of those listed below. I've included a brief review and opinions of the apps as well as costs, phone memory footprint, and where to download them. The screenshots are mostly in portrait mode, but all the sat nav apps featured here also work in landscape mode if you prefer.

Some of the applications store their maps on the phone's SD card, allowing routing to be calculated on the phone itself. Other satnav apps require an Internet connection to request routing information from servers on the Internet. The more professional paid-for sat nav applications tend to store the maps locally on the phone's SD card and calculate routes on the phone itself. Storing the sat-nav maps on the phone is great as the routing will work even when you have no mobile signal, and it won't use up your download limit, but it does take up loads of space on your memory card. Other apps that request routing and mapping from the Internet have the advantage of always giving you up-to-date sat nav maps and speed camera information, but of course will only work if you have a decent mobile signal. I've stated with each review which method each sat nav app uses, so you can see which one is right for you.

Nav4All

Nav4All has been around for years, with java versions available for all sorts of phones, but is now available for Android phones too. At the time of writing, the Nav4All website says that the program is free until 01/01/2010, even though that date has now passed. But it's been free "for the next few months" for years, so I wouldn't be surprised to see this date moved forward again anyway. It's a very mature application and quite stable now, but is rather simplistic and doesn't offer a map navigation view, instead offering arrow navigation. Directions are loud and clear and the view of the arrows is very clean and easy to read. Where the arrow navigation falls down is where you are trying to navigate a roundabout and you're instructed to take, say, the third exit. You might really need to double-check the direction from the map view to know which exit it means. Still, Nav4All does do full UK postcode matching, although in my experience, its maps are often a bit out of date.

What is most annoying about Nav4All is navigating the menus, of which there are many! The menus are simply lists and lists of options, which used to be fine scrolling up and down on older phones with navikeys, but now Nav4All has been ported to the Android's touch screen interface, it just doesn't work. It's almost impossible to pick options from the menus and will almost certainly have you mounting pavements and dispatching pedestrians if you try to do this whilst driving. Nav4All doesn't store its maps on the phone itself, instead going online to use the internet servers to calculate routes. The routing servers have been fast and reliable for me, and provide an excellent service for free.

Compared to some of the more modern sat nav applications Nav4All seems dated and its interface is poor, but it is free, lightweight, fast and stable.

AndNav / AndNav2

AndNav is a completely free, ad-supported sat nav application for Android and is quite advanced in terms of its features. Like Nav4All, it requires an internet connection to allow the AndNav servers to calculate your route. But unlike Nav4All, it does display (2D) maps as you drive, but does this by downloading maps as graphics bit by bit as you move around. The program's interface is clunky but works better than Nav4All's.

The problems with AndNav are that firstly, as standard, it doesn't do full UK postcode matching. For me, this renders the program almost useless. Secondly, the servers that provide the routing calculation are terribly slow and unreliable. They often takes minutes to calculate or recalculate routes, and sometimes fail altogether. Thirdly, as the maps are downloaded on-the-fly, sometimes bits of maps are unavailable as you pass through areas with no signal. This leaves you looking at a blank screen with a dot in the middle. Not very useful. The final nail in the coffin for AndNav is that the program often crashes while navigating.

AndNav is still a work-in-progress Android app and has so much potential, but isn't much use for me right now. But it's free and available from the Android Market. So you can try it for yourself.

amAze

amAze is another free but ad-supported sat nav program which is available for other platforms such as Symbian and java, but not yet for Android. The website says "Coming soon: Android". But then, it's said that for ages. It works well on other platforms, apart from the slightly annoying adverts and camp Michael Jackson voice, so keep an eye out for this in the future.

Wisepilot

Wisepilot is another Internet based sat-nav app available for Android. Routing is performed on Wisepilot servers. The maps are not stored the phone, but are instead rendered in real time by the phone into an excellent 3D view. Full UK postcode matching is supported, and address and routes are calculated really fast. In my experience, the servers have been really fast and 100% reliable. Points of interest, such as speed cameras are included. The look of the user-interface is really clean, intuitive and slick, and is the most responsive of all the android sat nav programs. What you get for your money is a subscription for a year or two years of the service. As it's an online service, you will always be using the most up-to-date maps and POIs.

It's miles ahead of the free sat nav programs, but then it's quite expensive and you get what you pay for.

Copilot Live 8

Copilot Live 8 is the brand new version of the very popular Copilot paid-for sat nav software that's now available for Android. It's a proper stand-alone sat nav program that stores its maps on the SD card in your phone, so it can it can work entirely without an internet connection. It's the most feature packed, professional sat nav solution here, offering all the features and a great interface. It boasts big, clear 3D mapping and everything from petrol prices and weather updates to live traffic information via the Internet. You can also import POI databases from the Internet allowing you update your speed camera information alerts.

But unfortunately Copilot Live is very resource hungry and runs quite slowly on older handsets such as the T-Mobile G1 and HTC Magic. The great looking interface is really well designed and works well, but often lags behind when you press buttons on the screen. Redrawing of the 3D maps is also pretty slow as you drive around, but is normally just about fast enough. It's a shame it struggles a bit on the G1 and Magic because otherwise Copilot Live is superb and is also pretty well priced. You can speed up the map redrawing a bit by changing the 3D angle, zooming in a bit, and switching POI display off, but still it's way slower than some of the other sat nav apps. If you have loads of apps installed, you might need to remove some to install Copliot, because the install takes 15Mb of the phone's memory!

On newer, more powerful handsets such as the Nexus One and HTC Desire, Copilot runs much better. So I'd recommend Copilot if your Android handset is up to the job.

NDrive

NDrive is another newly released sat nav app for Android. Like Copilot Live, it's a full featured proper sat nav program that contains all its maps on your SD card and calculates its routes on the fly. It also supports full UK postcodes and importing of POI lists in GoogleEarth format, so you can import speed camera databases.

NDrive is fast and lightweight compared to Copilot Live. Its user interface is more responsive and its map animation is much faster, although not quite as big and clear as Copilot Live. NDrive only takes half the phone memory of Copilot, and starts up quicker too. It's not quite as feature packed, but offers just about the perfect list of sat nav features for most users.

If I had to pick holes, I'd say the lists of favourites and POIs are a little bit small to read or press while you're driving, but that's the only problem I had with the user interface.

Also in my tests, I found that NDrive would sometimes take a long time to connect to satellites, occasionally refusing to connect to the satellites at all until I exitted and reloaded the app. All the other sat nav apps I tested connected quickly and didn't have this problem.

Overall though, in my opinion, NDrive is the one of the best sat nav applications out there at the moment for the Android platform.

Google Maps Navigation

Ok, this isn't officially avaiable in the UK yet... But hopefully soon, Google Maps will be updated in the UK to include full turn-by-turn navigation, voice commands and traffic info as it is in the US.

For now, here's the preview of Google Maps Navigation.

Destinator 9

Destinator 9 is another recent addition to the list of Sat Nav apps for android phones like the T-Mobile G1 and HTC Magic / G2. Despite the stupid name, it's actually pretty good. Purchase or trial of the software involves installing the app from the Android Market, AND downloading the setup package including maps to your PC. From there, you plug in your phone and the setup program copies the maps to your SD card.

The Destinator 9 app is a fully featured sat nav app featuring PIOs and speed cameras, multi lane guidance, weather, and all the other features you'd expect like favourites, trip planner with multiple stops, pedestrian mode, route detour etc. The maps can be viewed in 2D or 3D, and are fantastically clear looking, quite Garmin-like, with a nice sky view on the 3D mode. The voice guidance is good, with loud, clear directions, and does have the option of turning off the patronising nanny state "Drive carefully" at the beginning of each trip. [Sigh] The user interface, although not as slick as CoPilot or WisePilot is nice but not perfect, as the controls are rather small to read and press while driving, and involve using the Menu and Back keys in addition to the touch screen, instead of being entirely touch screen like most of the other satnav apps.

Searching for your destination is easy enough, but amazingly for a product like this, full UK postcode matching is not supported! Street and City searching as well as partial postcode matching is supported but isn't very good and had lots of addresses missing that were found in other satnav apps on this page. Destinator gets around this by having an option to search Google for your destination. It's a bit of a cheat because it's not a proper offline satnav system, requiring a mobile signal and data plan for this. Having said that, it does give the advantage that your search results will always be as up to date as Google's and does give you all the flexibility of Google searches, allowing you to search for "Shop" or "Pizza" or "Pub" for example, which will then give you a list of nearby matches, and the ability to drive to them. Route calculation and recalculation is perfectly quick, though.

When on the move, the map rendering is rather slow compared to some of the other apps, such as NDrive, but is quick enough. What isn't quick enough though is response to the touchscreen while navigating. Like CoPilot, Destinator becomes very sluggish to respond when navigating. In my tests, I even had "Force Close/Wait" messages occasionally appearing, not because the app had crashed, but rather because it was taking so long to respond, Android thought it had.

One very annoying feature of Destinator 9 is that on approach to a junction, a direction symbol will appear with an arrow making it clear which way to turn. That would be fine, if it wasn't totally obscuring the middle of the screen! When you approach a roundabout and are trying to work out which exit to take, it's infuriating to have icons appearing right in the way.

In summary, Destinator 9 is good, but personally I'd prefer to spend the money on one of the other sat nav apps, like NDrive or CoPilot. But as you can have a free 14 day trial, see how you get on with Destinator, it's not half bad.

Sygic Mobile Maps 9

Mobile Maps 9 by Sygic has recently been updated to work on the Android operating system and is now one of the best options we have. It's a full featured, stand-alone satnav app containing all its own maps on the SD card, so it doesn't need to the Internet to work. Features include speed cameras, lane guidance and full UK postcode searching. It's a fully touch-screen app and the user interface is the most responsive of all the satnav apps and works beautifully. Buttons are huge and very easy to press while on the move. The menus aren't the most intuitive but you quickly get used to them. The 3D map view is also stunning and very easy to follow.

Searching for addresses is easy. Entering postcodes is fast, as Mobile Maps automatically switches from letters to numbers when typing. Usefully, when selecting the destination, you can opt to pick from a list of nearby car parks and drive there instead. Finding the address is fast, but calculating routes is among the slowest of the satnav apps here, and can be very slow for complex routes. The voice guidance is very clear, and it reads road numbers which can be good, but also can be really annoying ("turn left onto the B one-thousand-one-hundred-and-twenty-two"). The map view is clear and looks great and the animation is among the fastest of the Android satnav apps which makes navigating roundabouts easy.

Overall, despite the slow route calculation, I reckon Sygic Mobile Maps is one of the best sat nav apps for Android.

Navigon MobileNavigator

Navigon is a big name in the standalone satnav market, and the new MobileNavigator sat nav app is a predictably professional and polished product. The user interface is well designed with big, easy to press buttons, which is always important for use in the car, and reaction to button presses is quick and responsive.

Entering full UK postcodes is quick and easy. The usual features such as favourite locations and searching for POIs nearby or near another location is supported, with shortcut buttons for Parking and Petrol Stations. Usefully, Navigon can read from the Android contacts so you can navigate to any addresses already stored in your address book or Google Contacts.

On to the actual navigation, and Navigon MobileNavigator is a joy to use. The 3D view is really clear and animation as you move along is super-smooth. Voice commands are clear, if a little quiet, and the sampled voice speaks road numbers for you, but doesn't attempt road names. And at last, we have a satnav app that correctly speaks numbers of major routes! (E.g. "A-one-thirty" instead of "A one-hundred-and-thirty"). Easy to follow lane-assist icons are displayed, and Navigon displays the speed limit on-screen all the time, which is a nice feature, although there are no speed camera warnings. In tests, we did find it rather annoying that the very polite lady insists on say "please" before each request!

Part of the beauty of Navigon MobileNavigator is its simplicity. There are almost NO settings to fiddle with and tweak apart from essentials like route type (fastest/shortest etc) and vehicle type so the correct speed limits are displayed. The satnav just works brilliantly. This will appeal to users who want a no-fuss, super reliable, professional product. I wonder if they've gone too far with the keep-it-simple design though. There is no ETA displayed for your journey or trip computer with distances, and you can't plan a future journey, or tweak a suggested route. (There is actually an ETA displayed if you tap the black bar - thanks Thorsten).

In summary, Navigon MobileNavigator is a great sat nav app for Android phones. It's very polished and works great, but is lacking some of the more advanced features. It's a great product, but is a little too expensive given its lack of more advanced features.

NavDroyd

NavDroyd is a brand new offering available now in the Android Market which uses Open Street Maps for its map data. In case you haven't heard of Open Street Maps, it's freely available map information compiled and maintained by members of the public, in the same way that Wikipedia is a collection of information created and maintained by members of the public. Even though the map data is free, you still have to pay for the app itself, but it's very cheap, at only 4.99 euros.

NavDroyd is an off-line sat nav app, containing all its maps on the SD card of your phone. The app contains a map download manager which allows you to easily choose which maps you want and it downloads them all for you to your SD card. To give you an idea of size, the map data for the UK is currently 60Mb, which you should download first while you're at home and from then on Navdroyd doesn't need to download from the Internet at all.

The user interface is fairly simplistic and at first, not that intuitive. It has a standard mode which is basically an interface for browsing the map, and a "cruise mode", which is a 2D or 3D driving mode rather similar to Google Maps and Google Maps Navigation. You can place "pins" on the map, which are basically favourites allowing quick navigation to, say, "Home".

The app itself is really very basic, offering none of the more advanced features such as traffic info, speed cameras, and settings are sparse.

Searching For Addresses

Searching for addresses is where NavDroyd falls on its arse. It's quite odd as you have to type the address in the form "Road Name Town" and as you type you are presented with matches. Sometimes. House numbers are not supported, and rather more fatally, postcode matching is not supported. The search box is too small, and very fiddly to use. The search facility in NavDroyd is disappointing and needs improving. The current lack of postcode search and even house numbers makes it frustrating or impossible to find addresses accurately.

Browsing of the maps and rendering is where NavDroyd shines. Pinch-to-zoom works excellently, and the map rendering is clear and quick. The app itself feels responsive and 3D animation in "cruise mode" is smooth. Route calculation is very fast, and has "shortest" or "fastest" options, and you can also choose between travelling by road or on foot. "Fast re-routing" is supposedly a feature, although NavDroyd failed to re-route when deviating from the route in my tests. ETA, time remaining, distance and speed are displayed along with up-coming junction details. You can switch between 2D or 3D views for navigation.

Voice guidance relies on the built-in Android voice synthesizer in the same way Google Maps Navigation does, including speaking road names. In tests, I found that the voice commands sometimes would interrupt each other, and sometimes stopped working altogether for no apparent reason. I also found it annoying being repeatedly told to "keep straight onto...".

NavDroyd has an open source feel and as though it does feel a bit like a work in progress it is fairly stable and certainly feels like it has potential. The success of Navdroyd is very much down to the quality of the map data in the areas you need, and whether or not you can manage without accurate postcode or house number searching. In my tests, the Open Street Map data has been excellent, but I couldn't live with the frustrating search feature.

Skobbler

Coming soon...

Website by jack -@- jack-frost.co.uk | Page Updated 16/07/2010