Thanks to Micky Aldridge for pointing out that Nokia is giving away one week's free Drive navigation for Ovi Maps 3.0 at the moment, as a trial of their service. Worth grabbing the code for typing in and trialling over the Christmas and New Year break? To get your code, head here and fill out your details. Of course, it would be even better if Nokia changed the whole sat-nav game in an instant and made the thing free for all, but....
Read on in the full article.
Sooner or later nokia will have to cut its losses and give navigation for free if they want to keep selling their outdated phones.
they can't hang with the new players and their services suck big time, choose any of them, music, games, ovi store, ovi suite you name it, they all suck!
i'm a long time nokia user and the last couple years i have been greatly dissapointed, nothing they come up is useful in real life.
There are a whole bunch of phones sold as 'navigation edition', and those come with a lifetime license for Maps.
The latest of these is the 5800 nav edition, which is interesting to look at because it's widely available in both variants. In the UK if you go SIM-free, a nav edition will cost �250 whilst a normal 5800 costs �235 (at the same store - pixmania) so it's already almost free at retail when bundled. They're also available on contract the same as non-navigation phones, so the end user is unlikely to see any cost differential.
Remember that although Nokia owns Navteq, it's a completely separate subsidiary. Unless Navteq becomes a subdivision of Nokia, then that business needs to continue to make money itself.
Google is in a totally different position to anyone else in this market - they target ads based upon your known location and those targeted ads are worth more. You have to remember that google aren't doing this out of a desire to give everyone cool free stuff - it's all about getting more data about you and using that ruthlessly to make as much money as physically possible.
I got a text from Nokia offering 30 days' worth of free sat-nav. Only thing is, I'm already signed-up for the 3-year deal!
I have noticed, however, on a recent trip to Europe, that I now have full Europe coverage for sat-nav, not just UK, as I originally signed-up for.
DO CHECK YOUR LICENCES!!!!
Looks like those of us in the states are out of luck on this one.
I took advantage of this, though I had a license that was due to expire in Feb 2010. Now it expires in March 2010, so this is good!
Even if phone navigation were free, I personally wouldn't bother with it. Dedicated satnav can't be replaced by a phone for me, especially as the dedicated units are so cheap.
I would humbly disagree with the dedicated sat nav vs phone issue. I have a dedicated Garmin nuvi which I love. However, I also have Garmin Mobile XT on my N95. The addition of realtime data made capable by the N95 is HUGE. Google local search, traffic updates and other features make the phone a better device for my needs.