I like the idea of having GPS on my cell phone. There are several programs available for the BlackBerry so I decided to try a few out. Here's a brief rundown on what I discovered. These are by no means full reviews. They are just my own personal observations.
TeleNav - Offered by Nextel - $9.99 per month - 30 day free trial
This program does not show a moving map but does a nice job of giving directions with large arrows and names of streets. TeleNav works nicely with the BB address book and has millions of POI's. You can even search for the cheapest gas station near you. The voice quality was really bad and I never could really understand what it was saying unless I turned the volume down and put the BB to my ear. The backlight would go off but come back on as you got near a change in your route.
MapQuest Navigator - Seperate download from MapQuest - 9.99 per month - 30 day free trial
I liked this program alot. Unlike TeleNav it shows a moving map plus turn arrows, direction and speed. Navigator downloads the entire trip to your BB so re-routing is fast. Intergration with the BB isn't as straight forward as with TeleNav however the voice quality was much better. I could leave the BB in a dashboard holder and still understand the voice prompts. Selecting locations and addresses required several clicks of the track wheel which I felt was bothersome. There's a screen similar to a Gamin I used to have that shows the latitude and longitude, speed and altitude. This could possible work good for GeoCaching. The backlight seemed to stay on the entire trip.
BB Maps - RIM mapping program - FREE
This program does not give voice directions. You can put in where you want to go and based on your location it puts driving directions at the bottom of the screen. It does have a moving map on the screen all the time which always shows your position. You can zoom in and out, however, when I zoomed in, it didn't save that zoom level. It goes right back to where it was. Another thing I couldn't figure out was the backlight was always going off even with the BB pluged into the car charger. There were some backlight settings in the options but didn't make any difference.
There are a few more that are supposed to work with the 7100i but either I couldn't get them to work or in the case of Wayfinder, is for Europe. Garmin should be coming out with it's version for the BlackBerry soon.
All in all, the MapQuest Navigator was my favorite once you were underway on the trip. It required more work to get it ready to navigate but was worth it.
TeleNav - Offered by Nextel - $9.99 per month - 30 day free trial
This program does not show a moving map but does a nice job of giving directions with large arrows and names of streets. TeleNav works nicely with the BB address book and has millions of POI's. You can even search for the cheapest gas station near you. The voice quality was really bad and I never could really understand what it was saying unless I turned the volume down and put the BB to my ear. The backlight would go off but come back on as you got near a change in your route.
FYI: The backlight may be set to stay on all the time, or to only come on at turns. Probably a battery saving function.
I thought I would add this comment. I stated that I liked MapQuest Navigator better than TeleNav but yesterday it started acting strange. It would stop navigation for no reason. I went back to using TeleNav and I'm having no problems with it. I wish Nextel would offer the newer TeleNav on the BB like they do on the Sprint phones. The TeleNav for the BB is version 4.0 but they are up to 5.0 on the regular phones. The newer TeleNav has 3D navigating which is pretty cool. It's similar to the Tom Tom.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MrKyoo
I believe you’re right. Mapquest Mobile is for non-BlackBerry devices.
I used BBmaps for a couple times while driving.
Man does that program work Nice. Great program with the internal GPS on in the 7100I.
Works like a gps in a car.
7100i GPS brief observations
