[sacherjj]

When I heard about the GPS navigation included with the Pre and data plan, I just assumed that it would be OK. I assumed it would work, I just didn't think it would work well. I was wrong.

Our current GPS needs are being met with two Garmin Nuvi's. The most recent being the 650, with a data update loaded within the month. I though there was no way that the Sprint Navigation could do better than the Garmin. Again, I was wrong.

I decided to use the GPS to "find" my way home from work. This experience is why I went out to collect some screen shots and write this review. I was impressed. The routing quality blows my Garmin out of the water. So does the routing speed. The work is offloaded to a fast server, rather than on a small CPU. When you divert off the given route, recalculating is nearly instantaneous. With the Garmin, it can take a few seconds. The kicker was that the routing was dead on, nearly the best way to get home. Over 20 miles with city, interstate, neighborhood, with options to come in from 3 directions. Sprint Navigation got it right.

The next surprise were the traffic alerts. These are built into the new GPS models that we haven't purchased yet, and that require a subscription. I was warned about traffic ahead and could tap the traffic icon to re-route. This re-routing took the same "short-cut" I always take home to avoid the congestion.

All during the drive, I was listening to music via Pandora. When voice prompts were given, the music was muted. If I missed a prompt, tapping the yellow icon on the top, left would repeat the current message after again muting the music.

While navigating, you can go into other apps just fine. I was in Spaz, Email, WiFi and others, when I was stopped by a train for a few minutes. The navigation icon stays in the notification bar. When tapped it indicated that navigation was still in progress and another tap takes me back to the moving map.

The map display can be configured to 2D or 3D views. 3D is nicer for highway and typical trip navigation. 2D can be more accurate and less confusing when routing in tight city streets. Both have generous zoom ranges.

Nearing my home, I was surprised by some of the voice prompts. The Garmin always announces some of the streets as County Road 600 N or County Road 500 N, etc. The Pre actually knew the street names. This is a great help. Most street signs are names, not the numbers. Being able to confirm the street name is a nice addition.

Tapping on the map screen will bring up a menu for Trip and Traffic Summary and Search Along Route. The former allows you to see a turn by turn style directions, traffic alerts along the path, or an overhead view of the route. The later is a powerful feature which is also lacking on our Garmin. We can search for items from where we are, but not along the route. This is great for food, fuel, motels, etc. In addition, a map that feels very similar to the way Google Maps displays locations is available to view relative positions of the options. The implementation is well thought out and executed.

One unexpected feature that feels currently more like a novelty is the Share Address option. This allows you to text the current navigational address to someone else. The text message suggests that using Sprint Navigation would be a great use of this address. The problem being that you can't copy the address out of the un-editable Messages field. Hopefully Palm will add copy from uneditable text soon, I'm sure they are working on it.

Will this replace the Garmin? Not quite yet. The one problem is that cell coverage is required for map data. However, we will be using the Pre for all our driving near big cities and along interstates where cell coverage is good. The Garmin is relegated to navigational duty out in the boonies.