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Google's Free Satnav Outperforms TomTom
Barence writes "A real-world road test of several different satnav systems has found that the free Google Maps Navigation outperformed TomTom's premium GPS unit. PC Pro put the satnavs through four different real-world tests, covering country roads, inner-city traffic and motorway driving. The Google satnav finished the four tests more than half an hour ahead of the top of the range TomTom Go 950 Live. 'For those in rural areas or people who spend hours in their car every day, we believe the investment in a dedicated satnav device or software will still pay off,' PC Pro concludes. 'But for the recreational user, it's amazing what you can get for free.'"
I love using Google Navigation on my Android Phone, but it's short-sighted to say that just because I'm not paying extra for "Navigation" that the cost of this service is completely free. It's all part of the relatively expensive "Google Smart Phone" bundle.
"For those in rural areas or people who spend hours in their car every day, we believe the investment in a dedicated satnav device or software will still pay off,"
really? I grew up in a rural area, and I spent hours in a car commuting because things were so far away... and I question this. There were two possible routes south from my hometown, one was about 150km to the closest big down, the other route was about 250km to the same place.
gee, hard choice there, better get out the GPS...
The more rural the area, the fewer route choices, and thusly the less importance a GPS due to the lack of choice.
the preceding post was not spell checked... suck it.
So the free google offering out performed the rest, but they still recommend buying one rather then the google offering?
Yeah, it's not like they explained that the inability of cell phones to adequately and consistently lock onto the GPS satellite signals, or the reliance of some of these phones to have a strong 3G data signal played into that decision...
The article is astoundingly hard to read. Apparently they took a bunch of GPS devices, gave each one to a driver, who was in a different car. They all started at the same place and time, and were told to go to the same destination. They had to follow the instructions of their device and follow the speed limit. OK. Sounds good.
But they all did this only one time. You would need to do this many times before you could start to draw conclusions from it. Sure, it is fun to play scientist and get out in the world and do some sciency fieldwork, but seriously. Anybody who has taken basic statistics ought to understand that meaningful conclusions can't be drawn from this because of the huge variance of travel times as a function of local traffic. Sure, the cars all start and end at the same spots, but they take different paths. If one path that would otherwise be the fastest is slowed down because of a car accident or an adorable family of ducks is walking on the roadside, that will skew the results for this single trial only.
It makes me sad that this sort of thing passes for research, and it makes me even sadder that people don't think critically enough to realize it is not reliable.
I'm going the other way.
As a techy, everyone expects me to have some all-singing device that does everything. People who use their iPhones to navigate ask me why I don't do the same (apart from not having an iPhone myself).
My justification is this: My TomTom does one job and does it extraordinarily well. Google Maps *can't* compete, I'm afraid, but is an adequate substitute if my TomTom is out of commission (hasn't happened yet except once when I left it in a car in Italy). My phone does one job and does it extraordinarily well. My watch does one job and does it extraordinarily well. My digital camera does one job and does it extraordinarily well. I see no need to have to accept inevitable compromises by throwing those functions into a single device which, if it breaks, means I lose all the functionalities.
I don't see the need for convergence at all. Yes, I carry several gadgets but they are all better at their jobs than any genericised device that claims to perform their functions. And when I'm not taking photos, I don't need a camera. When I'm not driving, I don't need a sat-nav. You get the idea.
It's easier this way, cheaper (overall, it is, because of the lifetime of each component of the products - if my TomTom breaks, I only have to buy a new sat-nav, if my phone breaks, I only have to buy a new, very basic phone), more reliable (my phone can break but I can still get to my destination, or my sat-nav can break and I can still phone someone to ask for directions) and I don't have to upgrade, install, manage a generic computer like I do for 99% of my working life. If my TomTom breaks, I moan at TomTom, not worry about whether it's because I've recently upgraded my phone. My phone is quite basic but does everything I need, so I don't need to stay on the bleeding edge. It makes phone calls and sends text messages. It *does* have a built-in camera (because it was all but impossible to find one without at the time I bought it) but I've never used it. It can go on the Internet, but I don't have it setup to do that.
In an absolute emergency, yes, I can use the additional features on these devices to perform some of their secondary functions (i.e. I have a car accident, use my phone to take a photo of the scene... it's better than nothing. I'm pretty sure my TomTom can talk to my phone but I haven't bothered to set it up). But overall, I have devices that conform to the UNIX-philosophy - do one job, and do it really well. I don't have hulking bags full of gadgets, either. My devices fit into my pockets comfortably and I'm not carrying any more than I absolutely need to. And because I buy single-purpose devices they don't need to be the advanced models, or to be high-spec, or fragile, they can be bog-standard basic units. I can upgrade a bit at a time without worrying about the other components (if I upgrade my iPhone, does my satnav app stop working?).
And when I want someone else to do the navigating, I give them the device. I can even lend it to them. And I could (theoretically) use it at the same time as being on the phone to the person I'm navigating to. And other things like that.
Convergence is for people that tolerate the mediocre and are happy to sit and "manage" another device in their life. Me? I just want to press a small amount of button on a dedicated device to make things do their job. Similarly, if someone at work suggested I put all the desktops into a single machine which did everything from routing to serving to faxing to processing to replacing the network switches and modems to running the clocks on the wall to running the phone system to producing client displays etc. I would be equally as horrified. Some functions are just better off in their own self-contained devices that attract simple support (modems, switches, routers, etc). If my TomTom hardware breaks, I send it back to TomTom. If my TomTom app breaks? Good luck getting support from either TomTom or Apple.
As someone that is somewhat knowledgeable about in-car navigation systems, sure, go ahead and compare some free web service to TomTom. While you are at it, compare Magellen as well. They are going to be about the same.
You can also compare most of the in-car systems (built-in and aftermarket) and see they are all about the same - mostly crap but often much better than a paper map. The displays aren't terrific and can be hard to see sometimes in direct sun. Also, the routing is debatable and the POI (Point Of Interest) listings are usually out of date, when available at all.
Yes, there may be updates, but it takes the company long enough to build the map database from source materials that it is assured to be out of date by the time the user gets it. This is very, very annoying when trying to use such systems in areas experiencing significant growth.
So now you have a uniformly negative opinion of navigation systems, right? Then compare what you have seen with a Garmin unit. Their processing path for the data gets current data out to the user much, much faster than other companies doing this. The POI database is much more usable and the UI is much better. Yeah, I carry a Garmin around with me.
So please, if you are going to compare systems, compare something real that works for the user. TomTom is cheap and pretty popular, but it doesn't have the UI or the data to really do a good job.
No, I didn't use to work for Garmin - I worked for a US-based map data vendor. And we helped a lot of people build in-car systems and were usually disappointed at some of the choices they made. But we had to remain pretty neutral.
I had this problem too until I bought a 1000 mA USB car adapter to replace the 500 mA adapter that I had.
which, of course, means it's not the cigarette lighter - it's the charger that's at fault
antipaucity
A friend of mine thinks that GPS'es need an "avoid ghetto" option. I told her that's a great idea in theory but it would preclude anyone who lives in our town from returning home ;)
More specifically, a "find detour" option. It'd be great to override Google's route-calculation by telling it that a particular part of the route is not possible.
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
I'd say that it is free. You would have bought the phone anyway, and there's (effectively) zero marginal cost to add the extra navigation features.
Side note: I was looking at cheap geocaching GPSes and was stunned to see what Garmin charges for GPS updates. Holy crap! It's like the razor-and-blade business model, except that the razor is also ludicrously priced. I can't think of a single reason why I would buy a dedicated GPS unit instead of putting those few hundred dollars towards a smartphone and having all the extra features they offer.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Well, Google would probably love to "accidentally" know the geographic distribution of its users at all times...
One that hath name thou can not otter