I know there was talk of Nokia adding spoken turn-by-turn directions before the final release. This didn't happen. You can get directions (either by searching for a location, or by panning the map to a location that you want to go to). It will show you the route on the map or give you a list of turns to review on the screen. Also, when you're looking at the route on the map you can click a little button that says "Track me," which causes the map view to follow your GPS location and rotate corresponding to the direction you're traveling. That's it.

Also, maybe it's just me, but I've been using it for a while now and I still find the UI for the maps application confusing.

Google maps is technically possible in the browser, but you have to use the pointer/selection mode to pan and zoom the map. It gets kind of slow and frustrating.