I had a journey to go on recently: Google Maps reckoned the outward leg should have taken 3 hours. The Garmin i3 (aka Psycho SatNav Bitch as ‘she’ tends to taunt me with unrealistic targets, even the way I drive) reckoned around 2¼ hours. My Nokia N95-8GB with Nokia Maps, on the other hand, reckoned 4 hours. Something of a disagreement.
In the end, the combination of the time of day, the occasional spray and muck left over from gritting (even though it hadn’t been icy) and the way I drive meant it took 2½ hours.
The routes themselves were almost identical, the only difference being the route in or around Grantham.
And the other differences were:
- the Garmin had the speed camera database to warn me of “accident blackspots”;
- as the Nokia was on the cradle and connected to the car kit, every spoken direction muted the radio which is a tad annoying when the voice prompts get a little frantic; and
- the Nokia’s display also shows the current speed (good) and the time left rather than the ETA (bad).
Looks like there’s still no ideal solution for me, but the Saga-driver Nokia is closest as it’s so nicely contained within the phone.