Compare Google Navigation to your GPS

[vickiel]

I love the Google Nav resolution, the cool features and the many options..... but I'm just not sure about the routes that it sends me on. Some of them are outright silly, like sending me an extra exit and having me double back on a local road. Others seem somewhat crude, such as wanting me to go the long way to a major local road instead of taking a few turns on smaller roads to get to the major road.

Is this why it's still considered Beta?

Anyone have any useful observations about the rules it uses, or any reassuring or un-reassuring comparisons to their GPS?

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[htc(hot-taco-cheese)]

I don't drive yet, but when I do, whatever android phone that I have at that time (I will never get an iPhone) will be my GPS replacement for sure.

¤ mobile ¤

[Shiftyshadee]

I use mine for navigation frequently. I've never really noticed it taking me a way I didn't agree with, surprisingly it's taken me a few ways I didn't even know I could go. Overall I'm pretty pleased with Google Nav.

[sarhound]

I use mine every day. Occasionally it will try to send me on a wild goose chase, but most of the time, it dumps me within fifty yards of where I want to be, which is saying something, since I live in the backwoods of East Texas. We're lucky if the roads have signs on then out here, let alone the houses. As a home health nurse, I spend a good bit of time lost in the boonies, but that time is decreasing now. Still have my Garmin, but most of the roads don't even show on it. Google maps is astonishingly accurate.

Sent from my Incredible using Tapatalk

[lstarr]

I use my Google navigation frequently and have never been steered wrong however....it does heat up my battery after about 20 minutes causing reboots so if I'm on a long road trip I have to bring an extra battery.

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[EFINIncredible]

I love the Google Nav, never been steered wrong, except when I went out of Verizon range and lost 3G, the Nav couldn't link for directions, GPS showed location on the map though...

[BullsEye]

Was in NYC this past Friday (my daughter and I chillin' at the museum and Central Park ) and missed the turn for the Lincoln Tunnel (some ass ran a red light and forced me to make an emergency right turn!). I know my way around NYC quite well so decided to see how well Google Maps knows its way around. I pulled over, started the GPS and gave it a few minutes to warm up. Ask for directions home and it wanted me to head south to the Holland Tunnel some 30 blocks south but I was sitting in front of the Lincoln Tunnel entrance only one block away!!! Good thing I knew my way around otherwise on a Friday night we would have spent another hour getting to the HT.

Then this past Saturday the boys and I headed up to north Jersey to play a little mountain golf. I knew where we were going but since I wasn't driving, I turned on Google Maps for the driver and set the phone on the dashboard. It had us pass our exit to the next one then double back. If we had gotten off on the right exit we were less than a mile from the course but instead we ended up about 3-4 miles away. I didn't tell the boys that as I'm the geek in the group and didn't want to deal with all the teasing I would get. My TomTom has been a great GPS and with all the traveling I do across the US and Europe, I think I'll keep it with me on these trips.

PS. SkyDroid did a great job as the GPS on the golf course for Beaver Creek Country Club.

[vickiel]

Bullseye- That sounds like my general experience too.
Looks like in areas where there are numerous options for getting from point A to point B, the navigation doesn't have the right data to chose real-life sensible options. Sometimes it will take you miles out of the way on a major route and even double back rather than cut across using a perfectly good secondary road. Other times it will have you zig through smaller roads rather than go a few more blocks to a more major route....

I wish I knew more about what they are working on and when they plan to come out with a more nuanced metric.

[RyanPm40]

Google Maps navigation is awesome, but it frequently does take me the LONG way to places, and one time it took me in a complete circle!

But besides some small issues such as I just mentioned, Google maps navigation > My Magellan gps (Never get a gps by magellan... Garmin all the way)

[tktouch12]

you can always tell you to pick a different route, so you can look at your choices and pick which one you think is best.
i like it though. it is the first gps i've had and i think its pretty much perfect. It rarely takes me a long way or anything either