TeleNav announces GPS navigation for Android, available on February 24
February 12, 2009 | by Robert Nelson
TeleNav has made an announcement that is sure to please many GPS-loving Android users — TeleNav GPS Navigator will soon be available for the G1. The app will work in both portrait or landscape mode and feature turn-by-turn voice directions, nationwide full-color 3D maps, a business directory with 10 million points of interest, one-click rerouting and audio traffic alerts. Additionally, the app will also allow you to search for gas by price, get weather reports as well as find restaurant ratings and reviews.
Sadly, the app is not yet available, however it is expected on February 24. You can also sign up (link below) on the TeleNav website to get a 30-day free trial once its ready.
All of this sounds great, but here comes a little bit of bad news, after your 30-day trial is over, expect to pay $9.99 a month. Personally, I was sold, this announcement would have meant one less device to worry about in the car, but for 10 bucks a month, I think I may still lean towards my regular GPS unit. I think I would have been happier paying a higher one-time fee for the app itself and not having to worry about a monthly payment.
[TeleNav]
$10/mo is a little excessive. One can buy a nice GPS unit these days for $130, and that GPS unit can live for days without being recharged. Sure TeleNav would reduce the number of devices, but for the price, it’s not worth it. Drop $130 on a GPS unit and have something that is far quicker and more reliable than a year of TeleNav.
Wait… Am I missing something here, or is that sort of the point of having google maps on board? OK, the 3D maps may look pretty, but surely streetview is just as nice, and more useful?
There’s two things that prevent me from getting excited here: I’m not going to pay $10 a month for something that’s free on most GPS devices, and sadly this program would be useless to me because I can NEVER get my G1 to detect where I actually am. I think the digital location finder is more accurate than the GPS chip in this thing.
Just stick with AndNav! from andnav.org
It doesn’t have all the functionality and fancyness of a professionally made program, but it will get you from point a to point b. It’s second in the travel category I believe.
This is not a GPS, is a Personal Navigation and Entertainment device. I did load almost 8gb of MP3 files into a SD card, plug that into the unit, connected the earphone port to my car’s aux in, and was listening to my tracks for 12 hours in a raw, and didn’t even listen to half of the songs. It shows the album art and more details. Is not an ipod or other MP3 player, so the functions are not as advanced, but still works great.
The navigation is actually pretty much like with any Garmin GPS. I could download the latest maps and firmware for free easily from the garmin website, and the activation of the MSN services took me a few seconds. You can even send routes from Google map directly to the device via USB cable. I think you could also via MSN, but I haven’t test that yet.
The MSN services work fine, is not a computer, but you got gas prices, weather, stock, news and more, plus traffic info, which doesn’t seem to be very accurate, but I can’t say for sure, have had the device for a week or so.
The interface is not the new one, but it has some improvements over the “old” one, like the speed limit on your screen. Also, an icon will appear in the navigation screen (map) if a Severe Weather Alerts is released for your area.
All in all, is BEAUTIFUL, the screen is HUGE, has bluetooth (haven’t test it yet), weather, traffic, MP3 player, maps, Picture viewer, calculator, converter, and more,
Lovely device (remember, is not a GPS, is a personal entertainment travel assistant)