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When I heard about the GPS navigation included with the Pre and data plan, I just assumed that it would be OK. I assumed it would work, I just didn't think it would work well. I was wrong. Our current GPS needs are being met with two Garmin Nuvi's. The most recent being the 650, with a data update loaded within the month. I though there was no way that the Sprint Navigation (by TeleNav) could do better than the Garmin. Again, I was wrong.
I decided to use the GPS to "find" my way home from work. This experience is why I went out to collect some screen shots and write this review. I was impressed. The routing quality blows my Garmin out of the water. So does the routing speed. The work is offloaded to a fast server, rather than on a small CPU. When you divert off the given route, recalculating is nearly instantaneous. With the Garmin, it can take a few seconds. The kicker was that the routing was dead on, nearly the best way to get home. Over 20 miles with city, interstate, neighborhood, with options to come in from 3 directions. Sprint Navigation got it right.
The next surprise were the traffic alerts. These are built into the new GPS models that we haven't purchased yet, and that require a subscription. I was warned about traffic ahead and could tap the traffic icon to re-route. This re-routing took the same "short-cut" I always take home to avoid the congestion.
All during the drive, I was listening to music via Pandora. When voice prompts were given, the music was muted. If I missed a prompt, tapping the yellow icon on the top, left would repeat the current message after again muting the music.
While navigating, you can go into other apps just fine. I was in Spaz, Email, WiFi and others, when I was stopped by a train for a few minutes. The navigation icon stays in the notification bar. When tapped it indicated that navigation was still in progress and another tap takes me back to the moving map.
The map display can be configured to 2D or 3D views. 3D is nicer for highway and typical trip navigation. 2D can be more accurate and less confusing when routing in tight city streets. Both have generous zoom ranges.
Nearing my home, I was surprised by some of the voice prompts. The Garmin always announces some of the streets as County Road 600 N or County Road 500 N, etc. The Pre actually knew the street names. This is a great help. Most street signs are names, not the numbers. Being able to confirm the street name is a nice addition.
Tapping on the map screen will bring up a menu for Trip and Traffic Summary and Search Along Route. The former allows you to see a turn by turn style directions, traffic alerts along the path, or an overhead view of the route. The later is a powerful feature which is also lacking on our Garmin. We can search for items from where we are, but not along the route. This is great for food, fuel, motels, etc. In addition, a map that feels very similar to the way Google Maps displays locations is available to view relative positions of the options. The implementation is well thought out and executed.
One unexpected feature that feels currently more like a novelty is the Share Address option. This allows you to text the current navigational address to someone else. The text message suggests that using Sprint Navigation would be a great use of this address. The problem being that you can't copy the address out of the un-editable Messages field. Hopefully Palm will add copy from uneditable text soon, I'm sure they are working on it.
Will this replace the Garmin? Not quite yet. The one problem is that cell coverage is required for map data. However, we will be using the Pre for all our driving near big cities and along interstates where cell coverage is good. The Garmin has been relegated to navigational duty out in the boonies.
Comments
I agree, I have been using Sprint Nav since it came out and I love it.
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A rather superficial review, IMO.
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Any suggestions on what additional information you'd like? He seems to have covered a lot of operation aspects, the quality of the routing etc.
Some of it doesn't match my experience - for example I found the routes that the Spring Navigator found to be a little too clever in that they seemed to favor side streets over larger roads at each end of the trip - that may be better in theory but not in practice. The Garmin seems to do a better job of keeping you off side streets except where they really can help.
Still as a second option and for times I'm not in the car it looks like a winner. I think it will be great for traveling and it has the huge benefit over the Garmin in that I'll actually have it with me.
I am going to have to disagree a bit about this review. In my expeiriance, the rerouting is slow and waits to long before doing it. Also, the program tends to tell me that I am off track and reroute me when I am taking the On/Off ramp that it told me to take. That gets rather annoying. "Please drive where I want you to. But I am where you told me to go! You are off course please drive to the highlighted route. Lousy ****ing machine!!!!!" Yeah, thats what using this is like sometimes. Also, my Garmin with 3 year old maps at least have a better GPS locator and may not know all the new streets but at least it shows me where I am correctly. Driving in downtown Seattle between all the hi-rises? Forget it with the Pre, I lost my GPS signal multiple times when I tried this. Still got where I was going but didn't always get the directions I needed.
In short, this is a decent program and handy to have. Especially since it is free but it definately does not replace a real GPS yet.
I agree. I travel between Stamford, CT and Hoboken, NJ quite regularly and there are a few times that the GPS will say "You are now off-track" when I'm still on-track. It also occasionally starts re-routing even though I'm following it's directions. Also, when the West Side highway is heavily congested, it always states that there is "No faster route" available when I can just take Riverside Drive and get to my destination faster. On the return trip from Hoboken, it always calculates a route that takes me crosstown into Queens for an 80+ mile trip vs. a 45 mile trip via the West Side Highway (it does get it right when I ignore it and approach the West Side Highway anyways). It tells me to get off an exit, only to have me take the next entrance ramp sometimes. And lastly, it's ETA times don't seem to account for traffic lights at all. If you're on a 25 mph road, they just expect you to be doing 25 the entire time. Bottomline, it's free with the PRE's data plan, so it's better than nothing (especially in an area I don't know), but I'm not going to pull a Michael Scott (The Office) and drive into a lake when the GPS tells me to.
I love the sprint navi and i have replaced my GPS with it. This is because of the cost with updating maps with gps units is so damn expensive. $80+ for a disc, ridiculous!. The sprintNav does sometimes mess up on ramps but i have noticed the second time taking the route it know where the ramp is, weird, and doesn't say im off course any more.. So it works perfect for my needs.
Is there any way to MUTE the navigation? Sometimes I don't need to hear the directions.
Sheesh..... Go to preferences. Where it says "audio?" ... Click "No audio."
I agree with some of the comments that this is not accurate on on/off ramps and over passes. Quite often it says to get off on an exit, but because an overpass crosses over in the same direction it says i am on the wrong road, then it takes a few minutes before it realizes I am not on the road it thinks....
Also its good to have a backup because if you exit 3G then sprint nav will stop working after a while, if not instantly.
Not true at all for me. I spent about three hours driving on country Alabama roads with no 3G and off and on roaming. The Nav never cut out once.I was very grateful that I didn't have to ask Bubba 'nem for directions at 2 in the morning.
So, Can you take your Garmin on the street and walk with the GPS helping you navigate through Washington DC? My PRE did it perfect. I have even made a nice holder for my PRE so when I am driving I never have to take my hands off the wheel. Now, I live in Virginia Beach, and all of the locations I use the GPS functions are big cities and Highway travel but it works great!
I'm curious what your point is.
Of course you can take your Garmin on the street to and walk with the GPS helping you. Why wouldn't you be able to? They're only a bit larger than the Pre. IIRC garmins do have built in batteries too.
I'm a big fan of GPS navigation on my Palm Pre. Works like a charm... one thing that people don't mention enough is that even if you lose your cell phone signal, the GPS radio still correctly pinpoints your position and the program will still guide you... you just won't see updated maps. When you re-acquire a signal, refreshed maps resume.
yeah, this is a big plus! I was driving out in the boonies where there was no sprint signal but the GPS kept giving me the instructions. THough I think it does require a network signal to first plot the route. I seem to remember that the program won't even open without a network signal. But once you're plotted it only needs gps signal to keep going.
Color me skeptical. I'll bet you're data roaming
when you lose Spring signal but GPS still works. The magic
of most, if not all GPS equipped cell phones is that they
don't do the actual GPS location calculations onboard.
They only receive the GPS signals from the multitude of
satellites, send the raw data to the cellular network
which has higher powered computers available to do
the expensive GPS calculations. It means that if you don't
have some sort of data connection available though, GPS stops
functioning.
Absolutely wrong with Telenav, and any Sprint Navigation phones. While it might be true for some Verizon dumb phones and their crappy nav program, the Pre and every GPS-enabled Sprint phone that I know of has an actual GPS receiver. They use the cell radio to assist downloading ephemeris data only for faster locking on to satellites. There is some controversy still about a standalone mode without the assistance, but it still finds your location solely on the device itself.
This is not true.
Well, I have to agree with the OP. I have used Sprint Nav and went from West Palm Beach to a small town outside of Pittsburgh (home) and it took us all of the way with no problems.
I also zoom in all the way on the 3D when doing the on/off ramps and it tracks perfectly.
Re-routing is pretty good. It usually takes me ignoring two u-turns before it will re-route, but it does so very quickly.
What really surprises me is how accurate it is in ETA and traffic. A real boon here in S FL. Now if it would integrate with contacts and calendar, like my Insteinct did, it would be darn near perfect for my needs.
There is a work around to losing data coverage.
I found out on a rcent trip to a ruaral area that when I went out of data coverage I didn't get updated maps but the route was still in the phone. example: I came to a four way intersection, no map saying it was a four way, but my little blue line said to turn right. So i turned right. When i got back into coverage and my phone got the maps downloaded I was still on route. The phone will still use the gps radio and the route without data coverage.
I have Garmin GPS for my vehicle, and use both. I use Sprint's GPS to find the hard to find places that my garmin doesn't or can't find, and I use the garmin for better GPS Nav. It works out for me.
Sprint GPS Search is more detailed than Garmin w/ Updated maps
Garmin is more GPS accurate meaning if i go offcouse it shows where i'm going and rerouts with no wait.
All in all Sprint Nav is great!
I have used all kinds of navigation, and the Sprint navigation definately is good. It is very fast, accurate, and the way they made it work on the Pre is second to none. If only other apps would be this well thought out!
Take that, iPhone. Flawless nav is on the Pre, for free! It will cost those crazy Apple Fanboys (I used to be one but AT&T's network made me rethink that), well over $100 just to get Nav on their iPhone...
Maybe they are not homeless beggars like you, so $100 is not a problem, pretard?
I think the GPS feature is cool and all but for me it's been pretty unreliable. I recently went on a trip and tried to use my GPS after leaving the house only to find that Sprint Navigation kept saying "Cannot find a GPS signal" or something to that effect. I even tried rebooting several times to no avail. I ended up just using Google maps which for some reason had no problem locating me.
I think the GPS feature is cool and all but for me it's been pretty unreliable. I recently went on a trip and tried to use my GPS after leaving the house only to find that Sprint Navigation kept saying "Cannot find a GPS signal" or something to that effect. I even tried rebooting several times to no avail. I ended up just using Google maps which for some reason had no problem locating me.
I think the GPS feature is cool and all but for me it's been pretty unreliable. I recently went on a trip and tried to use my GPS after leaving the house only to find that Sprint Navigation kept saying "Cannot find a GPS signal" or something to that effect. I even tried rebooting several times to no avail. I ended up just using Google maps which for some reason had no problem locating me.
This is a known issue. I have resolved this by closing the Sprint Nav and reopening it.
I have the same problem all the time! Most of the time, it cannot find a signal and asks me to be sure I have a clear view of the sky. But I do! And I get that little picture of a sattelite with an X over it halfway through a trip. Sounds like where I live has some bad GPS reception, or something. But I'm hoping they can help with an update or something. I love using it...when it occasionally works.
did you tried re-setting your phone?
The one and only way I can get Navigation to work is to reset the phone.
If I simply exit and immediately try to connect. GPS won't work.
If this requirement to reset feature (??) was disabled... I'd love it.
Anyone else have this problem? Sprint's response is "as long as the reset fixes the problem you don't have a problem".
I tend to disagree.
I had the same problem recently. Really frustrating because as someone else said I had a clear view/shot of the sky and yet it kept coming back and saying no GPS.
How do you reset the Palm and do you lose any info?
I like the Sprint navigation better than the Garmin. I was on my way up to a camping spot and the Sprint Nav gave me the way my car could make and the Garmin gave me a way I had to have a monster truck to get to!
Sprint Nav +1
I have used the share address and sent my location to my girlfriends Pre and I always thought of the text message as a notification that the address has been received and is in the My Favorites folder which has a Received Addresses subfolder.
Sprint Nav is great! Especially if there is a lot of road construction going on or has recently been finished. I live in an area in which the highways have been changed significantly in the last 2 years (410 & 281 in San Antonio, Tx) and the maps have been constantly updated.
The "Share Address" is much better then you think. My technically challenged wife and I use it all the time. We both have Pre's and more then once I've sent my "current location" to her and she's had no problem finding her way to my location.
Try sending yourself an address and you'll see what I mean. It's smarter then the reviewer states. The message actually says to just launch Sprint Navigation and the phone does the rest. No need to copy and paste, etc. (At least when you're working with two separate Pre's).
Also, a really great feature that is overlooked is the "Call It In" feature. Click on it and it gives you a Sprint phone number that is voice recognition for the navigation. It will ask for business or address and is really good at finding places like "Jason's Deli on 281 North and 1604." Once you confirm the address with the voice recognition it will tell you the address is in your "Recent Places." Sure enough, once you hit the "refresh" button under the Recent Places" tab, it populates the address into the phone. Lets see a Garmin do that!
+1 on "Call It In". I was also wondering why that was missing from the review. This is really a good feature to get a route on the go (no need to pull over to enter the address).
I've also replaced a Tom-Tom and a Nuvi with Sprint Nav. Love it.
When I tried Send Address, I had no link to click on. Might be a difference between emails and SMS, not sure.
The text message is more of a notification that the address has been received and is in the My Favorites folder which has a Received Addresses subfolder.
I don't actually get a link, the specific wording of my text message says:
"*sender's name* sent address for *address.* Launch Sprint Navigation for directions. Reply stop 2 end msgs"
When I launch Sprint Navigation, a Pop-Up immediately appears stating:
"1 Address Has Been Shared With You." and then gives two buttons for "View" and "Ignore." When you click "View" it takes you to the "Received Addresses" subfolder under "My Favorites," where you can select it.
Sorry if its a little overkill, I'm just curious if my navi works different then others and wanted to state exactly what mine says for comparison.
Maybe the address you were using was too long for the text msg and it cut off the part that says to Launch Sprint Navi?
Sounds like your Nav works similar to mine.
When the GPS won't get a signal, resetting the phone always seems to work.
Resetting the phone is like a 5 minute process though and doesn't always work. The Pre takes like 30 seconds to shut down and like 3 minutes to start up.
Orange+Sym+R is about 1 minute. No longer. This isn't a full reboot.
I'm gonna have to side with Kevin here.
Navigation on the Pre: -1. I'll have to give it the thumbs down. Not necessarily because Sprint Nav isn't any good. When it's worked for me it's been fine. In fact the issue I have really has nothing to do with Sprint Nav at all and everything to do with the Pre.
The Pre is totally unreliable for getting a GPS signal for me. This is one of the biggest marks against the Pre for me. VERY VERY frequently for me I will fail to acquire a GPS signal which makes Sprint Navigation unusable. Google Maps somewhat works because it triangulates and gives me an approximate location and then I can just view the map to figure out where I am and where I need to go.
Here's the thing. I live in a major city (Los Angeles) and it's failed to pick up a signal many many times (and yes, I am outdoors or in my car outdoors when I try). And I was recently in Chicago and it mostly worked fine whenever I fired up Google Maps to see where I was. (If my phone can pick up a GPS signal on Google Maps, Sprint Nav works fine).
Now we actually needed the GPS once so I busted out my Pre and... it failed to find a GPS signal. I tried it over and over and it kept on failing to find where I was. So we used my friend's Tom Tom, which took a little time, but DID find a GPS signal. So yes, epic fail and sadly enough, I'm not surprised.
When I first got my Pre, navigation worked about 25% of the time I tried it. Now it's up to 50-60% success rate, but that's still pretty terrible. :(
My experience was nightmarish with the nav unit. there were two nearby exits off the turnpike, about a 10th of a mile apart, and I took the wrong one. There is certainly some fat cat in a boardroom snickering about his bottom line, while I'm t-totally lost with a Nav unit that thinks that since I'm in roam, and lost, I certainly shouldn't use any foreign data services to reroute and update the map.
I end up with a text print-out of very vague directions to drive 15 miles down back roads to get to the next interstate, handed to me by the ticketing clerk. Thanks a lot Sprint Nav.
I've had many of these problems and can confirm that they exist, but free GPS? I'm not complaining!
I also disagree with this review. I have tried my GPS three times now, and each time it took me the wrong way. I mean - the complete wrong way. Left when I was supposed to go right...street that did not exist. And all of these were in major cities (Hudson, WI and Eau Claire WI) so it's not like I was in the boonies somewhere.
I have been very disappointed so far with the performance, and do not yet feel that I can trust it is sending me to the right place.
major cities (Hudson, WI and Eau Claire WI)
ROFL
I kid, I kid.
Im not surprised by hudson (my friend lives there), but eau claire is a little un-nerving...considering i am planning a weekend up there. and i dont want my romantic weekend to be spoiled by my lostness :(
will have to continue to use my GPS only due to the fact I can see the screen much better....Had i not already owned a garmon prior to purchasing the Prs, I'd probably
gow with the Pre Nav abilities.
The GPS is useless. I live in metro San Diego and out of 10 attempts to use the GPS only once it has worked. The rest of the time it just says it cant find my location. It sucks hardcore.
I use my Instinct for GPS, getting my Pre in the winter of this year, and something I noticed after some time is that the flag on the yellow square on the top left of the screen indicates on which side of the street your destination is.
Its a awesome little feature which I just love.
When I get a phone call during the navi use, the internet connection desappears, and navi stops working. Anybody has that issue???
The data for the maps cannot get downloaded during a phone call, so it would not work while you are talking. This is a limitation with the Cell technology Sprint uses. However, I was able to take a 5 minute call on a road that I knew I would be driving on for 10 minutes and after hanging up, the nav resumed correctly.
> The data for the maps cannot get downloaded during a phone call, so it would not work while you are talking. This is a limitation with the Cell technology Sprint uses.
This is absolutely not true.
I just tested it, and while on a call, I was able to
1. Browse the Web
2. Turn on Location services
3. Start Google maps jump to my own location, and do routing
4. Start Sprint Nav and do routing.
5. Start Go To app and see accurate/up to date GPS fixes coming in.
The only thing that doesn't work during a call is the
Sprint Nav voice prompts.
My old gps receiver would take 5 to 10 minutes to get a satellite signal. The Pre times out and "fails" after not getting a signal for maybe a minute; but it usually takes no more than 3 or 4 tries to get a signal. So it's still MUCH faster for me.
My experiences with it have been so-so. I find it pretty lame that you can't just send it an address from your contacts. But at least the multi-tasking and cut-and-paste functionalities make it relatively easy to manually enter those addresses. Really hope someone rolls something out that stores maps on device so it can be used sans-data connection.
If you open Sprint Nav and select Drive To, the last choice in the list is Contact. This will allow you to select a Contact's address.
That works for you? When I go to Contacts, I just get an empty screen that says "No Addresses Found" at the top, despite the fact that I have quite a few contacts on the phone, many with addresses.
That and the frequent inability to get GPS fixes (even when other apps on the phone can) are my biggest complaints about the app.
This only works with contacts that are in your Palm profile. It will not read contacts from any other profile. I called TeleNav about this, maybe they'll fix it.
I have a lot of contacts (around 3000) and it just stalls when I select this option. I think it has worked once or twice.
That said, I use the Sprint Nav all the time. I have had great luck with it, mostly in the Northeast US. I will, however, buy the Garmin or TomTom software as soon as it is available for the Pre. I would rather have my maps loaded on the phone, rather than relying on the network. I used TomTom on my Treos (650->700->755) and had very good luck with it.
I am a little surprised that some people expect this to be as good or better than a dedicated Garmin or TomTom device. I would expect any single use device, like a GPS, to be better than a smartphone. I equate that to complaining that a Garmin is a lousy MP3 player.
The review was adequate as far as it went, but a little one-sided, based on some of the comments. A more comprehensive review would have tested the nav system under varying environmental and driving condition, Driving downtown with high-rises on each side of the street might make a lot of difference in getting/maintaining GPS lock and/or cell signal strength. Driving a long highway route vs. home from work; country roads with spotty cell service, etc.
I've used Sprint Nav for short trips and it seems to work OK for me. No problems getting a GPS lock. The traffic update feature is welcome and an improvement over my Garmin Nuvi. Haven't seen a significant difference between the Pre and Garmin regarding rerouting calculations, map drawing, etc; both seem to work about the same for me, but YMMV, obviously.
I've had many issues with Sprint Nav failing to find my "current location". On one out and back trip, it worked fine on the outward bound leg, then failed miserably on the homeward bound leg along the EXACT same route.
One poster in the forums mentioned that when it fails to get your location, minimize the SN card, and load the phone app. Then dial ##GPS#, tap Get Fix, which force the Pre to get a GPS location. Once that's done, return to SN. The one time I tried this, it worked beautifully for me. But I haven't done it enough to be convinced that it's a sure-fire workaround.
> One poster in the forums mentioned that when it fails to get your location, minimize the SN card, and load the phone app. Then dial ##GPS#, tap Get Fix, which force the Pre to get a GPS location.
Thanks for sharing this neat hidden feature. In case anyone
else wants to try this, spell out ##GPS# entirely on the phone
keypad, (really ##477#) not the keyboard. It gives current
GPS coordinations, velocity, altitude and horiz/vert
positional accuracy. If GPS is turned off, it gives
position as best it can estimate based on cellular signal.
(same as when you get the big circle in Google Maps)
If you were ever to get truly lost in the wild this is
information that could be useful to rescuers, so it's a
trick worth remembering.
Search Along Route is something that most Garmins can do (I have the cheapo 205 and it has it). The problem is Garmin did a great job of hiding it on their UI. I stumbled across it by accident -- and everyone I know who has a Garmin is always surprised when I tell them and they find it.
After you click "where to", look for the subtle little button that says "Near..." at the bottom. You'll then be presented with several options, one of them being “My current route.”
You need to select "Near..." right then, because that's the only screen it appears on. If you go any further with your search, the option won't reappear -- thus the confusion on this matter.
Seems to work well for me, but I can barely here it with the volume all the way up.
I love it when it works but it seems to be like 75% I get that can't find my location thing which makes it pretty useless. I really can't believe that haven't patched this issue yet.
GPS is a pain to evaluate, and even harder to review, because a whole lot of people don't use it "right". On top of that, different areas have different signal strengths with phones, and of course comments will be across the board. When your service relies on signal strength to be responsive, everyone is going to have a different opinion.
Here in Portland, though, it's no worse than the Garmin GPS I was using, but it's a whole heck of a lot cheaper to just use the Pre. For long range trips, I just hit google maps and get directions...but in town, it works like a charm, so between that, it should be good enough for anyone. At least, anyone HERE. The rerouting is very much based on signal strength, so if your rerouting is off, it's probably because it's fading in and out. I haven't had that problem except when I'm on the very fringes of town, and then, I'm roaming on the Verizon network. Your connection is what makes a client/server application that is attempting to work in real time, and if your connection is cracky, of course the app will look cracky. It's like blaming a website for being unresponsive because your network cable keeps pulling out of your laptop.
I ended up giving my wife my TomTom and now use the Pre for my GPS unit in the car.
Does anyone else have a problem setting up navigation while driving? I try to program a destination then it tries searching for GPS and it fails ever time while driving. I park and it gets it. What gives?
It is just trying to keep you from killing someone by driving distracted.
This GPS is pretty good especially given that is free. I figure once they patch the problems with it the experience can only get better. I did notice that on cloudy days it does not work as well as a Garmin or TomTom, but I love the traffic updates feature it has saved me on multiple occasions.
google maps' traffic is much more accurate and much more comprehensive than sprint nav.
I used it for the first time today and i was very surprised with how easy and fast it was to use. I came from nextel and was using thier navigation which was horrible. I came home after work today and to test it out i had pandora playing thru the headphone jack into my cars cassette player and i got to jam out to my music then it would fade out and tell me when to turn next then resume my music. the only problems it had was when it wanted to reroute it told me to turn on the street right as i was passing it up. But i blame this on my speeding habits.
The one major gripe I have about Spring Navigation is that you are unable to disable toll roads. While driving in Houston my Pre tried to make me take every single toll road within 5 miles of me it seems. Driving on I-10 it kept telling me to take the Katie Tollway instead which runs parallel to I-10!
If you go into the traffic summary for a trip (tap on the map, tap on "Trip & Traffic Summary", and then tap on "Traffic"), you can tap on any of the trip segments and then tap "Avoid Segment". It might take some trial and error, because the boundaries of the segments aren't always clear, but you should be able to avoid tolls, provided you know where they are in the first place.
I've been using GPS's forever. Had Magellan, Garmin, Tom Tom. Had several different computer and Palm GPS's...including Tom Tom. I've been trying to wean myself of the Garmin and use Sprint Navigation and here are the pros and cons and issues.
Pros:
1. Sprint Navigation has constantly updated maps. It is more likely, but not always up to date. For example, yesterday, in Kauai, there was a newer road (maybe a year old) that was not shown in Sprint Navigation...but also would not have been on the Garmin.
2. Sprint Navigation has more businesses...and more recent businesses.
3. Sprint Navigation has traffic (though my Garmin also has free traffic.)
Cons:
1. Sprint often can't find my location. Seems I have to restart the Palm to reliably get it to work...which is a huge delay.
2. Sprint often thinks I am off the route. Seems to be a much less sensitive GPS and needs better access to sky.
3. Sprint often gives turn timing slightly off...a bit early...which can cause an incorrect turn unless you are also looking at the blue line to see where you are. This defeats the advantage of the voice and makes it not as safe.
4. Sprint interface is harder to navigate....again making it less safe to use while driving. It took me a while to figure out how to see the calculated route.
5. GPS routing sucks battery. A car jack is definitely recommended.
Here are my two experiences with Sprint Navigation:
1. The day the Pre was released, it was a bright, sunny day at the store in Schenectady, New York where I bought the phone. When I got it into my car, I decided to plot a route home just to see how it would handle my half-hour drive.
I pulled out of the parking lot as instructed, and a few hundred yards later I heard, "Your GPS signal is weak." And that was it from Sprint Navigation until I got on the interstate about 15 minutes later. Then it recalculated the route and kept going, but by then I would have been completely lost if I didn't already know a route.
2. I joined a new bowling league, and on the first night needed to figure out how to get to the new bowling alley from a client site an hour away. I put the route into my Pre and left my client site. I only got a few brief "Your GPS signal is weak" warnings, but what I did get was battery drainage. I double checked to make sure the Pre was plugged into the car charger and recognizing it, unplugged it, replugged it, even rebooted it along the way and replotted the route, but still, by the time I arrived at the bowling alley, my phone was down to 7% battery and giving me warnings. All I can assume is that somewhere along the way, I was out of cell phone range and it was searching for a signal, but if that were the case I wouldn't have gotten updated maps.
I haven't used Sprint Navigation since then. I've heard the new model of the Palm car charger provides more power, but until I'm sure it's going to work I'm not going to drop the extra money.
I can't believe there have been so few comments on what is clearly the biggest problem with Sprint Navigation on the Pre... YOU CAN'T INSERT YOUR CONTACTS INTO THE NAV PROGRAM! I mean... Huh? This is a gaping hole in an otherwise well designed nav program. With a phone OS that prides itself on "Synergy," such a problem with inter-program communication is absolutely, utterly unacceptable. I don't understand why the PreCentral.Net review ignored this gaping hole. Was the review written by a Sprint employee? I mean, COME ON!
As noted in a previous comment by selecting the Drive To option on the first screen it takes you to a screen where the last option is Contact. So yes, you can do that.
BUT - also as previously noted you may get the 'NO ADDRESSES FOUND' listing, as I do on mine.
So yes, it's there, but does it work? Not yet. At least not on mine. Definite room for improvement. Other than that the program works fairly well in my area.
I've been quite happy with Sprint Navigation, I used it to find a music store in downtown Sacramento and gave it a duel with my Garmin... they both performed well, but I will admit, the Pre had the edge.
That said, with the Pre, you need network access. This past weekend when I went up north, I lost data north of Chico. Sprint Navigation was 100% useless, it simply wouldn't run.
Not only did the Garmin perform, but it knew of all the small volcanic byway roads on the way to Lava Beds National Park. It didn't fail me once.
My point is that while Sprint Navigation is good, it's useless without data, and cannot replace a good standalone GPS.
the problem with the pre is there arent any good way of mounting it. right now i have those heavy base mount that i can rest my garmin on top of the dashboard and it doesnt slip. if you're driving by yourself, how are you going to check your pre from time to time and drive at the same time?
i drive stick btw, maybe thats why i cant hold it in one hand and drive at the same time?
Sprint Nav is not as good as it seems, it's taken me down several streets that do NOT intersect with others, it will tell me to "turn left" and there will be nothing more than an overpass with no way to get up there... it has also taken me on a few crazy routes, garmin and google maps are better if you're not on a very well beaten path.
Def a fan of the Sprint Navigation. I have a Garmin Nuvi 760 but I sometimes use my phone instead because I love that it gives you the option to use streets vice highways. Its something I wanted for my GPS.
Lots of comment here, but I'll throw in. While I mostly agree with the reviewer - as a former TomTom user I was impressed, there are a few struggles:
1. Battery life insanely bad. Navigation + music playing drained my Pre from 100% to 0% in 1 hour and 15 mins. Must have car charger.
3. Audio should obey Pre mute switch!
3. Pinch and zoom poor. In the view route area, I've found often that zooming in causes the map to jump erratically. Chalk it to user error, but I never have trouble with Google Maps.
4. Must have a data signal to route... bad news for me in Colorado mountains this summer. Almost got crazy lost because of no local stored data.
5. I wish there were some more customizable options: screen view, adding MPH (useful for checking car speedometer), etc.
But in general, I do find the quality of the routing, the traffic options, and the pronounced street names pretty great.
I ride a motorcycle most of the time and I love my Pre. I've mounted headphones inside my helmet so I can listen to Pandora and with Sprint Navigation's audio directions I can go pretty much anywhere without getting lost. Recently, I led a ride up to Mt. Rainier listening to Pandora most of the way and getting turn-by-turn directions. It was very nice.
I have 2 issues, however:
1) Some contacts that have addresses do not show up in the Drive To...->Contact list. I haven't figured out why. They are all formatted correctly and I have tried re-entering them etc... to no avail.
2) At one point (coming back from Rainier, actually) I tried to route to my friend's house but it kept saying that the GPS could not be located. The weird thing is that Google Maps showed my location perfectly so I know my pre was communicating with the GPS. This led to a LOT of wasted time trying to find the place on our own.
Other than these two hitches I LOVE my Pre and the Navigation is definitely one of the best features. Now if I can find a way to get txt messages read to me while I'm on the road... That would be neat.
Generally works well for me. It continued to work properly in the bowels of southern Ohio where the service is spotty, and only 1x at that. It continued to navigate properly even while going in and out of service. I did have one trip where it failed to get a GPS lock. I didn't try rebooting the phone, but it was an exceptionally overcast day. Otherwise, no complaints.
Program wise: 3 Stars. In San Francisco, CA, it asked to make U turns when there wasn't a need. It took me to streets with many lights instead of faster freeways. I took a parallel street by mistake for 4 blocks but it didn't realize it, it then asked to make the wrong turn when I got to the correct street. It worked fine in other smaller cities.
Hearing the device: 0 Stars. What good is a guiding device that you can't hear over normal tire/road and engine noise (I drive a Honda Accord and have 47 year old hearing).
Seeing where you're going/need to turn: 1 Star. Unless you are a co-pilot on a moving car or walking, you can't see the map on the device if you are driving paying attention to the cars in front of you, pedestrians, and traffic lights. Again, my 47 year old vision needs now reading glasses which I can't use while I am driving, and, shouldn't I be paying attention to the road anyway?
Getting you there: 1 Star. Again, what is the point of having a great cheaper GPS device with really good maps and alerts if you can't "practically" see it and hear it.
You would think that someone at Palm would have thought to send the GPS voice over bluetooth to your earpiece!
"You would think that someone at Palm would have thought to send the GPS voice over bluetooth to your earpiece!"
You need an A2DP headset to get that functionality.
gotta disagree.
read you're article yesterday. i tried sprint navigation for the first time today. i located my care at first but then could not recognize that i had started driveing. never relocated the care. basically i was two miles away and the satellite still though i was in the parking lot.
i started over and it never found the car. i did like how it says the full street name but it only said the first one when it was telling me the street to turn on out of the parking lot. all in all it didn't work, didn't find my car, and was compltely useless. my 120 dollar garmin found me while in motion in about 4 seconds. would be good. just didn't work.
Love this app. I used the same Telenav software on my HTC Touch Pro. I have to say that it actually worked better on the TP. Calling in an address was an automated process, meaning that you call it in, hang up, it syncs to the phone and starts nav to that location. With Pre you have to call it in, end the call, go to recent places, refresh, then click new location.
The software is much prettier than the TP, and i actually like it better, except for the whole data issue. Like everyone else is pointing out, you need to have data access to start the nav process, but this was not the case on the TP. This tells me that the problem can and should be fixed with a software update, since Telenav worked even in deadzones on TP.
my nav works great....
i use it to travel to band jobs and it is right on the money 90% of the time
I love it
I have the Garmin Nuvi 350 and now the Palm Pre. I love the Palm Pre for its versatility. I used the Pre's GPS from my work to home and found that the Pre picked up the GPS signal relatively quickly and that the routing the Pre selected made sense. The Pre was quick in recalculating when necessary. Use of the Sprint car charger in conjunction with the Pre GPS seemed to keep the battery acceptably charged.
The only problem I had was the speaker volume, which was very low for my 65 year old hearing, and not on par with the Garmin Nuvi. Is it possible to rout the Pre's voice guidance through a bluetooth in-car speaker device?
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