As we enter the end of May and the start of June, many of us are having our weekends disappear to plans for attending weddings and grad parties. In many cases, this may require one to drive to a location that they’ve never visited. For people like me that are bad with directions, this is why we cling to our GPS devices.
The standard directions functionality that comes with Windows Phone leaves plenty to be desired. The phone goes to sleep on you and it constantly requires your attention. It’s pretty much unusable in far too many cases. When Nokia entered the Windows Phone market, they decided to offer their own GPS software, Nokia Drive, to provide their customers with a better experience.
I’ve worked with GPS on Smartphones before. Back in the days of Windows Mobile, I used a program from Garmin, Garmin XT, to help me find my way around. Unfortunately for me, that program, like all Windows Mobile apps, didn’t work when I got my shiny new Windows Phone device (However, for $29.99, one can pick up Garmin StreetPilot for Windows Phone 7 from the Marketplace). So since the launch of Windows Phone in the US, I’ve been hanging on to my old Samsung Omnia for GPS functionality alone. As I had to head to a wedding in a town I’ve only visited a few times, I was wondering if Nokia Drive could replace the Omnia I keep in my glove box.
Spend two seconds with Nokia Drive and it becomes clear it’s a huge step above what Windows Phone offers on its own. The software keeps the screen on. Its map follows the driver as they work their way down their route. Users get a selection of voices to choose from. First glance told me the software had promise.
Since I was in the wedding I had to go to, I had to get their the day before for the rehearsal. I had the address saved in my calendar appointment for the event. I copied and pasted it from there into Nokia Drive and let it find the way for me. This did bring me to my first disappointment with the app. It would have been so nice if the app could automatically pull that information from my calendar so I didn’t have to go from my calendar to the app myself. Minor inconvenience though. Copy and paste was there to save me.
Once I got the address of the church in the program, I told Nokia Drive to find it and it kicked back a few possibilities. This brought me to my second frustration. It kicked back the street address, the zip code, city name, and the country. I had a bit of worry with this. I was headed to Bowling Green, OH. Well there’s more than one Bowling Green in the US. Since I didn’t get the state and I didn’t just happen to know the zip code for Bowling Green, OH, there was a bit of panic. Luckily when I clicked on what I thought was the most likely possibility, it showed me a map of my route and I knew it was the right address. I tell the app to guide me and off I went.
Now I wasn’t too confident in the route it gave me. It wasn’t that it wouldn’t get me there, but I was pretty sure it was going to take me through construction. I was already running late due to my own fault and I didn’t want to get held up in that. So I took some liberties and cut across from I-75 to another expressway that would get me to my location. Nokia Drive didn’t like this too much.
Once I altered the route, it essentially kept telling me to get off at the next exit and turn around. It kept doing that until the program locked up. The only way I could get the program to work properly was the completely reboot the phone. I’ve never had that happen before with any app. I will admit that I was using a rather goofy rig to keep my phone charged, but it was all I had at the moment and I didn’t want my phone to die on me on the way there. My buddy who was getting married would have killed me if I didn’t make it.
The good news is that the program is very simple to run with just quick glances. I didn’t have to copy and paste the address again because it was saved in the history. So it wasn’t too bad to get the app pointing me in the right direction while driving down the expressway. By the time I got it functioning again, it had figured out what I was doing with my route modifications and it stopped fighting me.
Later down the route, I learned that I was right in my assumption that Nokia Drive wouldn’t alert me to construction or heavy traffic as I ran into both on this new route and got no warning. Minor delay in my drive and for a program that comes free with all Nokia Windows Phone devices, I shouldn’t expect miracles.
Eventually I did get to the church and as far as I could tell, Nokia Drive did take me on the shortest route possible.
After the rehearsal, I had to get to a restaurant for the rehearsal dinner. Since I’ve only been in Bowling Green a few times and the last time I was there was a few years ago when I got kicked out of a Curling league (don’t ask), I had no idea how to get to the restaurant. So, again, I copied and pasted the address from my calendar, plugged it in, and away I went. The program worked as advertised to get me to that location as well.
The next day, I had to get to the location of the reception. We had planned on carpooling from there to the church so we didn’t all have to drive back to the church get our cars. So since I was driving from a new starting point and going to a new final destination, I fired up Nokia Drive again. This time, I went without the charging cable to avoid another potential crash and also to test the impact the program had on my Lumia 710′s battery. I kept the Omnia in the glove box in case it all went horribly wrong. In the course of the drive to the location and a few detours I opted for (can’t go to a wedding on an empty stomach), I had Nokia Drive running for about 45 minutes and had surprisingly minimal impact on battery. My battery ended up lasting all day and all night under the load of some additional light tweeting, texting, music, and Facebooking. When I called it a night at about 1AM, I still hadn’t gotten the critical battery warning.
Nokia Drive worked like a charm. It got me to the wedding so I could see my friend get married and I could spend the evening dancing with a very lovely girl. Thanks, Nokia Drive.
In conclusion, Nokia Drive isn’t a very robust or versatile GPS program. I couldn’t import addresses from my calendar or contacts without using copy and paste. It also lacks the ability to find restaurants, gas stations, or other useful locations along your drive. You’ll need to rely on road signs for those. That was a function I was missing from Garmin XT, but I almost never used it before so it wasn’t a major loss. If all you’re looking for is a GPS to help you get to those weddings and grad parties this year, Nokia Drive will suit you well. Just don’t use a really questionable charging solution. If you’re a regular road warrior, it might be in your best interest to look at something like Garmin StreetPilot for your needs.
