Ndrive India review (at last)
Hello everyone From my previous posts you know that I have been searching for an alternative to Google maps on Android. When I used symbian the ovi maps are excellent,they should be ,after all, Nokia owns the world’s largest navigation and mapping company Navteq and it supports offline navigation,and this is my biggest gripe in Google maps though there are other small issues when taken in the context of India.So I’ve set out to find alternate navigation applications in android.In my previous posts you can find the review of mapmyindia for Android and to summarize the review in three words ‘I hate it’ and some of the reasons are,not available in Android market,horrible interface and I could go on. Then I purchased Ndrive India from android market and I promised myself that I would write a review only after I use it for actual navigation and so here it is
Short version-do not buy it. Long version: When you first download the app from the Android market and run it for the first time and you have to download the maps for India which is about the size of 150 MB. So again do not expect Google maps here,first the gps lock takes time,irritatingly long time that’s because it doesn’t use a-gps(assisted gps where it locks the basic location using the data given by the carrier) and the interface well, you can’t compare it with Google maps but it Is usable and the navigation part is fairly smooth,it calculated the route for about 100 km’s pretty fast one down point to note here is that when you search for a location you first have to enter which state it is in and then which city it is in. It also has an option to send your location via sms which it does and it also has an option of foursquare check-in and Twitter linking but I tried to login to foursquare and failed many times ,so I gave up.A point to note here is that it has an option to check-in at your destination or you can check-in to places along the route.So this is good news for foursquare junkies. The voice navigation is pretty clear too..you can also download additional voices.The maps are very basic
So the final verdict,If I have to rank all the three then
1.Google maps -if you don’t mind the data charge these maps are the best and are updated
2.Ndrive India - This is one of the best alternatives and the software is not so bad.(please see the update)
3.mapmyindia for Android-Their in car navigation systems might ne good but when it comes to phones I wouldn’t recommend it at all.(see the update)
Cheers
UPDATE:Sorry i forgot to mention the maps which are used in different apps.The maps of Ndrive India are very basic and not many places are listed even in big cities where as the maps of mapmyindia are excellent and perhaps they are the only maps which has the most detailed maps of India but shitty software,so you have to decide here what plays the important role for you,stable software with usable interface or good maps with not so good(ahem..)interface then go for mapmyindia..All This and I can’t tell decide myself which is the best,I think I lean slightly towards Mapmyindia because they have good Maps.You have a tough decision because the maps of mapmyindia are pretty good and the Ndrive India is a pretty stable app compared to Mapmyindia
Cheers.
P.S:After reading this,comment on what you have decided
