Nokia Drive GPS navigation system reviewed

Nokia’s latest range of mobile phones is certainly taking the market by storm. Called the Lumia series, these smart phones run the latest version of Microsoft Windows Phone 7.5, dubbed Mango. Sure, they have a long way to go in order to dent the vice grip Android devices and the iPhone have on the market, but the clean and simple interface of the these phones is sure to make them a hit. Apart from the streamlined user interface, these phones come with a plethora of brilliant software, one of which is the Nokia Drive navigation programme, which works in conjunction with Nokia Maps.

So we got a chance to “test drive” one of these new smart phones from Nokia, the Lumia 710 and put its navigation software through its paces. The first thing one needed to do was get updated maps for our locality. Nokia Maps has a maps download feature to download maps from their online service. This was easy enough. Choose India, then Maharashtra, wait for the 100-odd MB download to complete (which took 5-10mins over my home Wi-Fi connection), and viola! We were good to go.

So after getting into the car and trying to search for our destination, we encountered our first hiccup. It seems that Nokia’s system needs an active internet connection to search for places, even though it has all the maps built in. And since our test phone had an inactive SIM card, this was going to be a problem. Still, I managed to tether it over Wi-Fi to my Android phone, and then used my phone’s 3G service to get going. Another slight problem was that the Nokia service didn’t seem to have a very vast database of places in and around Pune, so we were stuck with navigating to only the more well-known ones. Luckily, our office buildings, Times House, on Fergusson College Road was listed.

Destination chosen, off we went and immediately realized how powerful the Nokia Drive navigation system was. Not only had it picked the best route, it also adjusted the route each time we tried to fool the system by taking an alternate path. Plus, the turn-by-turn voice directions (which can be customised with a variety of downloadable voices) were some of the best ones we’ve tested in any device so far.

Overall, the system is fairly accurate and the easy-to-use, intuitive touch based interface should make even the most ardent technophobes feel comfortable with it. If you have one of these, you’ll rarely feel the need for a dedicated navigation system.