Updated 1/9/12

So I got one of those fancy Droids a couple weeks ago and when you go from a Razr (the original one, not the slick new Droid Razr) to a Droid, everything is cool and fancy.  I honestly don’t know how a lot of the features that are “gee whiz” cool compare to other smartphones like the iPhone.  They’re all cool to me, but wow is the Facebook and Google Voice integration slick.

Google Maps Navigation Beta brings free turn by turn navigation to your Android powered device.

Anyway, instead of posting my thoughts about the phone side of things, I figured I’d post about the thing I am qualified to review – the GPS, specifically Google Maps Navigation Beta.

I’m on my fourth GPS device and have extensively researched others.  In fact, I decided to get the phone with its built in navigation instead of one of the new high end TomToms.

So I have fairly high standards for what I want in a GPS device, and I have to say that Google has managed to include cool features I would never have thought to ask for… unfortunately they also neglected to include some fairly important industry standard features.

I like it, I love it

As you’d probably expect, Google Navigation uses their Google Maps data for all the routes.  The maps are up to date (I hated buying updates to my old ones) and since it accesses their online database, they’re about as up to date as you can get.  Up to date maps doesn’t sound like a big deal until your GPS device tries to convice you to take an impassible snowmobile trail in the middle of nowhere Colorado – then you’ll appreciate having accurate maps.

The voice search is also awesome.  It knows where businesses are (even local ones, not just chains) and can find them with a simple search.  My car broke down a week ago and I was able to find a towing service close to me (I didn’t want to be stuck there any longer than I had to), and call them using the same device… and I was able to read reviews before I made any calls.

It can find landmarks, categories of businesses, schools, pretty much whatever you want.  And if you decide to type in the information, it’s not all that picky and can even figure out what you meant to spell if you spell something wrong (just like their search engine can).

It will also find places along your route.  For example, if you’re on a road trip and need to find a Starbucks, instead of Navigating you to the closest Starbucks, it’ll find one that’s along your route so you don’t need to take an extensive detour or turn around.

However, one thing it can’t do is navigate to someone in your contacts list even if their address is in your phone.  My guess is that feature is coming, but so far it doesn’t do that.  Sadly, even Siri can do this but Google Maps Navigation doesn’t just yet.

Google Street View is pretty cool especially as it can display a picture of the intersection and a picture of the business you’re navigating to.  However, I’d like to more advanced instructions for complicated interchanges.  For example, my last GPS would tell me to take and exit and which lane I needed to be in when necessary.  It isn’t necessary all that often where I live but let me tell you, it’s immensely helpful when it does come up.

You have the option to use Satellite view just like with Google Maps on your computer and you can even overlay the terrain if you’re out hiking.

And one feature I really like was the ability to navigate “nearest” whatever.  For example, you can tell Google Maps Navigation to “navigate to nearest movie theatre” using voice commands and it will.

Fail!

Night mode

While there are some excusable omissions, one that is just a complete brain fart is the lack of a night mode.  Honestly, I was expected that the phone would not only have a night mode, I figured it’d automatically kick in when the sun set based on its location – the phone has a lot of location aware features like that and I figured Google Maps Navigation would have that… it didn’t.

I learned this on a trip from Nebraska to Wisconsin.  Fortunately, I don’t need directions for the trip, so when it got dark and night mode didn’t kick in and I couldn’t find it in the menus, it wasn’t a problem for me just to turn the program off and finish the drive sans navigation.

But seriously, no night mode?  I’m assuming this oversight will be fixed in the near future, but as far as I’m concerned, the program should never have left alpha testing without that feature.

Update (Feb 2010) – Night mode exists now (came as part of Google Maps 4 app update) and yeah, it works like I expected it would – location aware and based on sunset and sunrise.   Glad to see they added it.

Speedometer

Another industry standard is how fast you’re going.  And TomTom and Garmin devices also happen to know the speed limits where you’re driving and can tell you when they change.  Google doesn’t even display how fast you’re going.  I know, I know, that’s what the speedometer on your car is for.  Well, I find the one on cars is frequently off by 1-3 mph.  On a long trip, a 3mph difference is half an hour I could have saved and the GPS speedometer is always extremely accurate.

Update (Jan 2012)

No, no built in speedometer yet.  But you can get one via a third party app called Ulysse Speedometer.  You can set it up so that it will startup whenever your phone is connected to the car dock and it will display your current speed in the status bar at the top.  It’s the perfect add-on for getting a speedometer on your Android phone while still being able to use Google Maps Navigation.  Oh, and it’s a free app so it’s a no brainer.

To set it up so it runs in the status bar, click the “menu” button, then click preferences.  Make sure the “Work in Background” box ix checked.  Then click “Background notifications” and make sure the “show current speed” box is checked.  Then scroll down and make sure the “start on car dock” box is checked.  Now anytime you put your phone in the car dock, this application will start right up and will display your current speed no matter what application you’re using.  For example, most of the time when I’m driving I don’t need navigation, but instead have my podcasting app up and running and I still have a speedometer on my phone.

Data Connection Required

Here’s another real head scratcher.  The need to have a data connection for navigation.  I can totally understand the need to have a data connection for things like Street View, Satellite View, and some of the more advanced features – it’d just be too much to store on the phones memory and updating would be a pain.  However, needing a data connection for even basic navigation is bad design.   Google needs to offer an option to download the maps to your phones memory card and to use those maps when data is lost.  GPS and navigation needs to work in the middle of nowhere.

Those are my biggest complaints.   But here’s why I’m still happy about getting Google Maps Navigation vs TomTom.  I know that Google will continue to update it and that it’s likely to be a true rival to TomTom and Garmin within a year and those complaints I have will likely be addressed soon.  If I had a Garmin or TomTom, I’d be waiting a lot longer and I’d probably have to pay for the upgrade.

Google Maps Navigation may not be quite ready to challenge the big boys for navigation supremacy just yet, but for the price (FREE), you could certainly do a lot worse.

Update (Nov 2010)  Google Maps Navigation now has an offline mode so that even if you lose data connectivity, you will still get navigation along your route.  It still requires an initial data connection as it needs to download a vector map of your route but once you’re on the road and moving, it won’t require a constant connection.

More cool features they’ve added over the years:

• Walking Navigation – You can get direction if you plan on walking to your destination.  It will also work if you plan on going via bike and will take bike paths in your city for navigation instead of streets.
• Transit Navigation – This is a cool feature!  If you need to use public transit (bus, subway) to get to your location, this feature will tell you where to get on and off and what route number to look for.  This is so helpful when I’m in a big city as just trying to reed all the transit routes makes my head spin.  (I grew up in a small town and am used to simply taking a car wherever I need to go).