The best navigation programs for Android in Europe. Navitel vs Yandex Navigator on iOS or how I traveled around Europe
The maps in the application are constantly updated, so you don't have to worry about the accuracy of the data. The NAVIGON program has a friendly interface, thanks to which you can easily understand the program and learn how to use it. The maps that the application displays can be viewed in special night and day modes. This is very useful feature, since it will be easier for you to navigate an unfamiliar area at night if you see a map made specifically at night. In addition, it is possible to view maps in landscape and portrait mode, as well as in 2D and 3D displays.
The application also has many options available that will undoubtedly be useful to many. For example, there is a speed controller. Find out how long it will take you to get to your destination! You can also convert text into sound and use voice prompts to find the object you need. Advanced pedestrian navigation and street assistant is a useful feature of NAVIGON, with which pedestrians can choose the shortest route to their destination and easily navigate unfamiliar streets.
In addition, using Navigon, you can find out the exact coordinates of the place you need, right down to the door you need to enter. The application will show you direct access and the shortest path so that you can reach recipients from your phone book. The “Take me home” function available in the application is very useful. If you are lost and don't know where you are, with just one click you can activate this function. The application will show you the way to your home. NAVIGON also uses application add-ons. By using add-ons, you will expand the capabilities of your mobile navigator. Using add-ons, you can take advantage of the mobile alarm function - a new service that is designed to send and receive information from mobile security cameras. In addition, you can watch the traffic on the streets “live” to know absolutely reliably where you are or where you need to go.
All maps, voice packs and system files are saved on the phone. For the application to work correctly, 2GB of free space on the SD card is required. Please make sure you have free space before installing and using the application. After installing the application, you need to download the maps directly to your computer or smartphone. If you use your phone to navigate in your car, we recommend placing it away from the airbags to prevent damage to your smartphone or device.
- Uses integrated Google search
- Detailed real-time traffic data
- Up-to-date information on weather conditions along your route and final destination
- Speed radars
- Realistic 3D view of roads
- Help for advance preparation for a turn or exit from a highway, informing on the display a map of secondary roads with arrows and the actual geometry of the road surface
- Speed control with adjustable audio and visual warning when exceeding the speed limit
- Using the camera and built-in compass, information about points is displayed on the screen Catering, hotels, gas stations, etc.
- Plotting the optimal route using information about traffic congestion, departures and weather
- Pedestrian navigation
- Entering a destination using coordinates
- Convenient and easy-to-learn interface, what a sophisticated menu, in development appearance psychologists took part
- Automatic switching between portrait and landscape modes and day-night functions
- Quick access allows you to get directions to addresses saved in your address book
- "Take me home" button
- Multilingual interface, including Russian
It so happened that I have long been firmly hooked on Yandex Navigator (about 2 years already). He suits me with everything:
- More or less decently lays out the route.
- He circles traffic jams (and sometimes helps a lot with this).
- It taxis when I go off route.
- It has passable voice search.
- It’s quite good to search using the so-called. POI (shops, service stations and other gas stations).
Why did I go over to the side of evil and try Navitel? With all my love and commitment to the Navigator, it has two disadvantages - it is permanently online (i.e. it constantly requires the Internet) and offline maps only at points of presence (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other Turkey).
I was going to Poland (as it turned out, and not only to Poland) and began to look for an alternative with blackjack and offline. I read the reviews and took the first offline navigator I came across, which declared that it had a map of Poland (and at the same time supported domestic manufacturer, since the alternative was iGo). In case you didn’t notice, I needed all this on an iOS device (iPhone 5S).
- Navitel itself is free, but maps need to be purchased.
- You are given a trial period, I think 2 weeks. During which you can “load” any cards for free. Perhaps there are some other “surprises”. I didn’t go on trial.
- Further, some cards can be purchased on an ongoing basis (Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and a combination of them), and some can be rented for a month or more. At the same time, prices for permanent cards are about 2 times less than iGo (Ukraine, Belarus about $17, Russia + something else from $30 to $40).
- I bought Ukraine for a “permanent” stay (like Russia, it cannot be rented out) and Poland for a month. In total, it cost me about $20.
- When switching from the trial, I caught some kind of glitch: the money was written off, but the cards did not appear, but by tugging/exiting, logging in/restoring purchases, I resolved this issue.
So the maps are loaded - let's go.
Interface surprises:
- If in Yandex Navigator If I’m used to freely entering an address (including a voice address), then please indicate the country separately, the street, house number, etc. separately. Smiled, on some maps the planet Earth is indicated. Thank God at least they don’t force you to enter this in the search.
- If in Navigator you have one search line (address or GPS), then in Navitel these are different menu items. Yes, I also had to travel using GPS coordinates :).
- In general, the interface was clearly written by programmers - there are so many buttons, switch options and other little things that you get scared at first. By the way, sometimes this is convenient (in fact, in addition to the maps and interface language, the voice acting also changed - the Ukrainian Oksana drove me :) well, I wrote earlier about the option to turn on/off the Internet).
On my way:
- I traveled around Kyiv a little, but I didn’t get used to it (and I still didn’t understand whether Navitel was circling traffic jams or not). I set the route for a hotel in the Lviv region and went.
- Navitel behaved with dignity until the city of Rivne, after which it tried to take me off the flat E95 highway and onto a country road (why? a straight road with 2 lanes in each direction). When I dared to disobey, the navigator was very persistent and every 500 meters tried to turn me around and take me onto this dirt road and I had to temporarily switch to a product from Yandex.
- Returning 50 kilometers later to Navitel and driving a little more, I saw a warning that the phone’s battery was... running low. I checked - Navitel was actually draining the battery. And this despite the fact that it was constantly connected to the car charger. It was an unpleasant surprise, which was resolved by disconnecting Navitel from the Internet.
- In Poland, Navitel behaved very decently until the section of the A4 Yaroslav-Krakow road when it finally took me into the fields (i.e., it took me off the autobahn and brought me to the dirt road). Those. the behavior is completely identical to the road section in Ukraine. If in Poland the problem is most likely in the maps (perhaps this is a new section of the road), then I don’t know how to explain this behavior in Ukraine. The road is old IMHO.
- We must pay tribute to Navitel and Polish maps - we spent the night in a hotel in the village where this navigator took us (7 km from the autobahn at night through villages). It behaved similarly well in Zakopane, where we were heading (found the address without any problems).
- When the temperature dropped to -17, my wife and I decided it was time to see the surroundings in Slovakia. We bought a map for 30 days (for another $2; downloaded about 250 MB), entered the GPS coordinates of the point and went to see Orava Castle (about 80 km). And when a couple of days later it got warmer and it started to rain - Freedom Cave in the same Slovakia (also according to GPS coordinates - about 120 km). There were no major complaints about the navigator.
- Navitel sometimes makes mistakes at junctions - for example, a bridge and three exits and they tell you to take the left exit, although you need to take the central one. This happened twice in Slovakia. Perhaps these are peculiarities of Slovakia. There were no such “surprises” at more complex junctions near Zhitomir.
Bottom line
Yandex Navigator good for the city or places with maps (see above) and inexpensive on-line. Over the course of 2 years, the Navigator took me three times to the wrong place. If two cases were a long time ago and I understand their reasons, then why didn’t it take me I took him to Zhulyany airport in Kyiv, I don’t know. In reality, the number of trips using Yandex Navigator in Ukraine was about 100 (mostly Kyiv). excellent result. Among the shortcomings, the spartan interface should be noted (for example, despite the fact that the language in the phone is EN, I want Russian or Ukrainian voice acting, but it must match the language of the phone’s interface).
Navitel- a good solution for offline, but you shouldn’t trust this navigator 100%. In terms of price/quality ratio, this is a very worthy solution. You need to get used to the navigator interface a little and you will be happy. Well, in roaming conditions it is, perhaps, invaluable.
Among the obvious shortcomings - it doesn’t “steer” well when you leave the route (maybe I was so lucky), drains the phone’s battery online and sometimes gives strange voice prompts at some junctions (although I had such surprises a couple of times with Yandex Navigator ). My experience with Navitel is noticeably less, but in total I have already driven about 1500 km in three countries :)
A spoon of tar
On the way back we stopped in Lviv. On Sunday evening, with the central streets blocked, both navigators saved the day. They started it under bricks and simply refused to build routes along the narrow central streets of Lviv.
Update 01/21/15
I accidentally came across a video on Yandex traffic jams, on which Yandex Navigator is actually based.
For the impatient (superficially for 15 minutes)
And in detail with sense, feeling and arrangement for 80 minutes
Navitel Navigator - accurate offline navigation, geosocial services and detailed maps Europe. Try popular navigation for free for 7 days!
* 20 MILLION INSTALLATIONS WORLDWIDE *
* TOP 5 IN NAVIGATION CATEGORY IN 12 COUNTRIES! *
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User reviews:
“I have been using Navitel for a very long time. IN Last year the feeling that the development team has been greatly strengthened - the product has become COMPLETE and of much higher quality. Thank you very much - Navitel has become very pleasant to use.”
“- I calmly reached Anapa. Thanks to the developers.”
“- This year we went on a tour of Europe, the maps are detailed, thank you.”
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ADVANTAGES
Offline maps. To work with the program and maps, you do not need the Internet: savings on roaming and independence from the quality of communication in the regions.
Available for purchase navigation maps 64 countries of the world.
It is possible to purchase cards for 1 year, from 790 rubles (except for cards of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and packages that include at least one of the cards of these countries).
PECULIARITIES
Navitel.Traffic. Information about traffic jams in real time throughout the entire map area.
Navitel.Friends/Cloud. Exchange messages, monitor the location of friends and plot a route to meet them. To log in to the Navitel.Friends/Cloud service, you can use your profile in in social networks(Facebook, Twitter, VKontakte).
Navitel.Weather. Weather information anywhere in the world for three days in advance.
Dynamic POI. Fuel prices, movie show schedules, etc. helpful information.
Navitel.Events. Road accidents, road works, speed cameras and other incidents marked on the map by program users.
Navitel.SMS. Exchange messages with friends without interrupting your navigation.
Purchases from the program menu. Purchasing new map packages and updating those already purchased from the My Navitel menu.
SpeedCam Warnings. Information about radars, video cameras and speed bumps.
3D Cartography. 3D maps with support for textures and building heights.
3D interchanges. Display of multi-level transport interchanges in 3D mode.
Lane of roads. Route calculation taking into account multi-lane traffic and visual cues when driving along the route.
Multilingual. Multilingual interface support and voice prompts.
Voice guidance along the route, notifications about battery charge level and connection with satellites.
On-board computer. More than 100 different sensors: time, speed, weather conditions and other parameters.
Quick route planning. Instant calculation and construction of a route of any length and complexity.
Unlimited number of points when building a route. Convenient route planning with an unlimited number of destinations.
Customizable interface. The ability to adapt the program interface and change the map display mode to suit your own needs.
Multi-touch support.
OFFLINE CARDS FOR PURCHASE
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Austria, Albania, Andorra, Armenia, Belgium, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Vatican, Great Britain, Hungary, Vietnam, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Georgia, Denmark, India, Iran, Iceland, Spain, Italy, Kazakhstan, Cyprus, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Maldives, Malta, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Isle of Man, Pakistan, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San -Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Finland, Philippines, France, Croatia, Montenegro, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Sweden, Estonia.
If you have questions about using the program, write to us at [email protected].
Using GPS running in the background can significantly reduce battery life.