Posts Tagged ‘ovi maps’

Free. For Life. Nokia Ovi Maps Voice Assisted Navigation

Thursday, January 21st, 2010

Yep, you read it right.  Free, for life.  No need to pay money.  No need to crack the software.  Nokia announced today that the Ovi Maps software which comes preloaded on all its GPS enabled smartphones will now offer free lifetime voice assisted navigation.  Voice navigation, you know – as in that sexy female Brit voice that tells you to turn yourself on left, right, go straight, avoid that raging river, etc.  It’s available globally, effective immediately and on a select number of Nokia’s devices.  Strangely, the flagship N97 is left out (although its little brother, the N97 Mini, is supported) and the N900 gets no love either.  That’s rather sad, I think, when your maemo and Symbian flagships are left out in the cold – boy, these two handsets must feel unwanted!

Click here to download the software if you own one of the supported devices as of the time of this post – Nokia X6, Nokia N97 mini, E72, E55, E52, Nokia 6730 classic, Nokia 6710 Navigator, Nokia 5800 Xpressmusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition, Nokia 5230.  If you don’t own one of these, either weep yourself to sleep, or get a Garmin personal navigation device, or just continue using the cracked Garmin Mobile XT software on your Symbian smartphone – don’t worry, life doesn’t end.

And oh, boy, that US$8.1 billion that Nokia paid to buy Navteq (whose maps and products form the basis of Ovi Maps) must look really, really expensive now.  Ouch.  I wonder what the shareholders will say to this…

Source.

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Posted in gps, maps, navigation | 23 Comments »

Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

nokia-logo-1Well, it looks like Nokia is going to milk the 5800, its first, and the industry’s first Symbian touchscreen phone to its fullest.  We already know that the 5800 has been selling by the bucketloads, and I think the reason is that it’s been priced very competitively.  In Malaysia, it’s now selling for around RM 1,1xx, and for a smartphone, it’s very cheap indeed!  Nokia has now announced and released a 5800 Navigation Edition (the previous version was called a “Comes with Music” edition) – the major difference being that this is marketed primarily as a navigation device, using Ovi Maps (or previously known as Nokia Maps).  This edition comes with a car kit, car charger and a lifetime license for Ovi Maps’ walk and drive navigation features (which is a payable option, normally renewable annually on all other Nokia smartphones).  This phone is also “chrome lined” at the sides, giving it a polished and rather professional look compared to the cheap plasticky look on the original 5800.

nokia-5800-navigation-edition

Check out a video below showing it in action, helping the user to navigate to a landmark in Finland.

No word on local availability nor pricing is available at this time.  Via intomobile.  I think that if Nokia Malaysia maintains the same pricing for the 5800 Navigation Edition as the 5800 when it was originally released, it would be a good buy, considering that a lifetime Ovi Maps navigation license cannot be cheap!

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Posted in h/w, mobile phone | 11 Comments »

Ovi Maps Graduates

Friday, July 3rd, 2009

nokia-logo-1A short post to let people who are using Nokia Maps extensively know that the beta version of Ovi Maps (previously known as Nokia Maps) has graduated from Nokia’s beta labs to the “real world”, ready for extensive abuse testing.  So, anyway, here is what I discovered having dug around a couple of the Nokia websites:

  1. there is no mention on the main betalabs.nokia.com website, which is the home of Nokia Betalabs, of Nokia Maps/Ovi Maps graduating from beta to a “commercial release” status.
  2. if you go to the maps.ovi.com website, which logically should house all things related to Ovi Maps (duh…look at the URL), again, there is still no mention of Ovi Maps Mobile coming out of beta.  The only indication that the mobile version has indeed graduated is when yu click on the link at the bottom of the page which says “Download Ovi Maps for your device”, which directs you to a page here -> http://www.nokia.com/betalabs/maps, which then redirects you to another page here -> http://betalabs.nokia.com/betas/view/nokia-maps-30-maps-ovi, at which point you’re told this: “Ovi Maps 3.0 beta for mobile has been graduated – go to http://maps.nokia.com”.  Finally, the maps.ovi.com website still has got the Beta word plastered all over it.
  3. now, the only way you can tell that Ovi Maps Mobile has graduated is by checking this webpage -> http://betalabs.nokia.com/blog/2009/07/02/ovi-maps-for-mobile-graduates which then directs you to the main Ovi Maps webpage.
  4. at the main Ovi Maps webpage here -> http://europe.nokia.com/explore-services/maps you will then find the download links for the Ovi Maps Mobile software.  It’s so intuitive looking at the URL, isn’t it?  I mean, which intelligent person can’t figure out that you can indeed download the latest version of Ovi Maps Mobile at that URL address?
  5. All in all, a major fail, in my book.  I have to lie down now – all that wandering about in Nokia’s online world has made me a little dizzy.

So, in short, if you want to update, go to the link in point 4 above.  In case you’re also dizzy, here is the link -> http://europe.nokia.com/explore-services/maps/download.  Is anyone here using Nokia Maps extensively, or have you all moved on to better mapping and navigation software?

Via symbianguru.

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Posted in gps, maps, navigation | 3 Comments »