Googles shiny nav application may have a lot of good things going for it in the eyes of most commuters hitting the road – its cheap (free, in fact), easily accessible, can search many different areas easily and effectively and can help get you the latest information on maps better than many paid services. There is one small catch it has, though: with limited traffic update capability and a less-than-reliable live update feature it may leave many heavy commuters in the dark when it comes to finding the best path at the right time during rush hour, something that many drivers simply cant afford to have against them.
One of the primary draw backs of Googles app lies in its turn direction functionality. While it states that it can easily identify key roads and turns to take to get from Point A to Point B the fact is that many of the directions it provides are obscure – instructing a driver to attempt to take a little-known road that even local drivers have a hard time finding – or even against the law, instructing some drivers to take turns the wrong way down a one-way street or where turns are strictly prohibited. Further, the voicing for the program is robotic and may actually drive some people a bit mad over time from listening to it regularly. In contrast a rather inexpensive Garmin or TomTom navigational program offers better, more realistic directions that follow all set traffic laws, keeps drivers in areas that are easy to find and navigate, offer much more human sounding speech and even have multi-language versions of speech available for those who dont want to deal purely in English – all for $80 to $150.
On the flip side Googles smart search feature with the ability to recognize common destinations and even bring up contact addresses from your Google account are a breath of fresh air for many a commuter. Other paid systems, while being accurate on the road, may have a hard time finding out exactly WHICH place to go to and may take you to the wrong destination. Googles integration of its top-notch service here with flexible parameters let it win some major points against more rigid service providers.
All in all, for a free app it has its ups and downs but may be something to strongly consider if youre looking for an affordable navigational tool. While if youre a serious driver looking for the latest information at all times and need a lot of assistance getting around some of the other devices might be a better bet, but for the casual commuter Google may have made themselves a product that can help the average person in need easily and effectively without much need for any additional hardware.