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--- personal:blog:2014:1214_best_off-line_navigator_for_android_2015 [2014/12/14 17:13]
antonello [Conclusion]
+++ personal:blog:2014:1214_best_off-line_navigator_for_android_2015 [2018/06/18 15:11]
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-====== Best off-line GPS navigator for Android 2015 ======
-It's December 2014 and I need to go back for Christmas to Italy from France, so I need an "off-line" navigator for my Android smartphone, that is one where, contrary to the default Google maps, I can pre-save the map on the sd card and use it without internet.
-And possibly, I want it free.
-So I tested 7 of the most popular gps android applications that offer off-line turn-by-turn navigation.
-I can with confidence affirm that today the "winners" are 2:
-===== HERE maps by Nokia =====
-[[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps|HERE Maps]] (developed by Nokia) has by far the simplest interface, the faster map rendering and trip computation. Even a long international trip, it compute it offline in a matter of seconds.
-It is completely free, and I particularly like the fact that before starting the navigation you have a nice overview of the trip that allows to see and choose between different variants.
-{{:personal:blog:2014:here_trip_view.png?200|Trip overview}} {{:personal:blog:2014:here_turn_by_turn_view.png?200|Turn-by-turn view}} {{:personal:blog:2014:here_map.png?200|Map view}}
-===== OsmAnd =====
-[[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.osmand|OsmAnd]] is the most complete, options rich and map detailed solution. However you pay this richness in a interface that it's way more complicated than HERE and in a general slowness. To compute a trip between Nancy to Turin (~700 km involving 3 countries) it took (remember we are using them in full offline mode) 5 minutes, against the few second of HERE.
-Also,if you want to download more than 10 area maps, you pay a one-time fee of 8 US$ (very small compared with e.g. the ~40 USD per single area of Sygic).
-As a plus, both the app and the maps (OpenStreetMap) are open source, and you can use the app to contribute back to the main database.
-Also, differently from HERE, you can choose to download a "complete" regional map or a much more compact "roads-only" map.
-{{:personal:blog:2014:osmand_trip_view.png?200|Trip overview}} {{:personal:blog:2014:osmand_turn_by_turn_view.png?200|Turn-by-turn view}} {{:personal:blog:2014:osmand_map.png?200|Map view}}
-===== Conclusion =====
-You want a simple solution that works well ? Go with HERE maps. You prefer to have more control, settings and prefer an open-sourse solution? Go for OsmAnd.
-Both are on the Play Store, and given their quality I am sorry I don't see space for the other solutions that I tried: [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sygic.aura|Sygic]], [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.navfree.android.OSM.ALL|NavFree]], [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=cz.aponia.bor3|Be-on-road Navigator]], [[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mapfactor.navigator|MapFactor Navigator]].
-They both fully work in off-line mode: looking for an address, the computation of the optimal path and the turn-by-turn navigation all don't require an active connection.
-The only think I miss from them is a small 1x1 android widget //à la// Google Navigation to point it to a destination (home, shopping mail, office..) so that you can set it to your wife (..or husband :-) ) so that she (he) can just click the widget and the navigator starts the turn-by-turn indications toward the desired destination..
-~~DISCUSSION~~