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N800/1.2007.44-4/int flash boot

As my usual excuse, do a 3 second search, dont find it, here we go:

Just came back from a two hours trip city drive using the Map (Wayfinder 2007 Version?), that came with the 2008beta (1.2007.44-4). Obviously, Nokia put a lot of attention to this thing, inet menu first icon is My Selection, and first choice is Map then Skype then rhapsody.....

I would also put in my 2cents when comparing to MMapper 2.2 or Open Street map. Whatever you want to look at it. And also remember this is the Map before incorporating the Wayfinder functions which is going to be launched in late December.

From now on MaemoMapper is MM and WayfinderMap is WMap.

Map on WMap: When first turn on, there is none. You click Map>Maps>Avialble maps>Refresh, it will dl titles of maps that are available. Currently there are USA West/East/Canada, South Africa, Middle East, Singapore, Russia, Greece, Central Eastern Europe, Germany & Alps, UK & Ireland, Scandinavia, Italy, France, Spain & Portugal, Benelux, Turkey. According to Wayfinder, that is it for Nokia.

MM wins here. MM has any maps under the sun.

The US/Canada are 1.5 Gb total, and the Europes are 100 - 300 Mb each, and the rest are 10 - 50 Mb each. Well, here is the challenge, to dl the maps. First, they are very very very slow, I would dl Russia/6 Mb as a test to make sure things are working, then I will dl the large map when I go to sleep and hope it will be done in the morning. You need 2.5X space for working, otherwise, they crash your Nokia and require to take out the battery for reboot. So a USA 800 Mb you need something like 2 G free space to dl, o/w, you have been warned. Again, the dl is so slow as if your Nokia is frozen, so try a small map first.

Once dl, you can move the map folder to ext SD card if you need more room. Map will find them whether it is ext or int SD.

A map is a map. MM or WMap are more less the same, both are superb, works smoothly. One big problem on WMap, there is no exit number on the highway, maybe there is but I have yet to learn to find them.

Set up
Easy and straight forward. No problem with BT phone or BT GPS. BTW, I need to defend MM. I also encountered problem with BT phone and BT GPS interference with MM as in other thread mentioned in the forum when running on N800/2007Os. However, there is absolutely no problem when MM is on N800/2008Os. I am not sure whether it is because of the 2007Os vs 2008Os or the 2008Os is a clean install.

Road test
WMap works fine. SatSignal is steady and functioning. Navigation is smooth and self explanatory. Screen is not clustered with unwanted info. I specially like the tiny number on the R lower corner which continuously reflects the distance to next marker/end of route, very convenient. Very disappoint though, the auto locate is menu driven, not hardware. That is a big disappointment as one auto locate almost every now and then. MM win in a big distance. WMap has something called Wlan USA, the next WiFi location is always on the map, almost like gas station. I think their POI is an edge better than MM, more details, easier incorporation. On navigation, both MM and WMap are vey smooth on the iT. Refreshing is also fast.


Route - not available on WMap yet.

Software - Map
The WMap is very simplistic and easy to use. There are only 7 choices on the main menu and total 9 choices on sub menu for a total of 16. Simplistic means easy to use, but also means less flexible. There are only two items to use on setting - language and measuring units. Did not test the language yet, but the measuring units are wrong, they stays on km whether you are on miles or km.

To the contrary, MM has a menu of 7 X 7, 49 choices, and also sub menus. It is much sophisticated and flexible, I specially like the way one can customize the iT buttons.

Search is different on WMap from MM. They start searching as you type, so one can fine tune their search as one getting the hint from the search result, e.g. like searching Merck Road, as you type M, they turns in everything with M then Me then Mer so and so forth. However, the WMap is much less forgiving then the MM, one has to type the exact street name.

Finally, the MM is more up to date, I guess the OpenStreet is more up today. WMap use an outdated street name to find my address, but the label on the screen is correct, go figure.

Bottomline, both MM and WMap are very useful. MM is more sophisticated/flexible/powerful but are much more intimadating. While the WMap are almost like a turn key system, but again, there is not much for you to adjust. And the good thing, WMap is totally functioning as the way it is - Free. A slight edge for the WMap, inet is NOT needed as maps are there. One can do the same thing with MM, just require a little more space. MM also has tracts which allows one to go back from just using the tracts. Maybe WMap has it in the Dec launch.

Wishlist: WMap would allow some assignment to the iT buttons like the MM does and we need exit info on the hiway, and tract and route would be great.

My BT GPS is from Newegg.com, something like $49.95 and it works with the iT, PC, PDA flawlessly.

bun

On my broadband connection (which is not the limiting factor here) the downloads run at an average of about 50KBytes/sec (180MB per hour).

Which means it takes around 4 hours for one of the USA maps (700MB) to finish. This is from Canada... the map download server is in Finland. YMMV.

I second your comment that you need lots of extra free space for these map installs to succeed... have at least double the space. You do NOT want this to fail after spending hours downloading. There is no way, that I know of, to recover and carry on from where you left off... you just have to start downloading all over again.

It's a good idea to download a small map first, to see where it is being saved. If it is on the wrong card, that is the time to move the directory to the correct card, before you download a larger map.

Will I be able to buy the Wayfinder functions for a N800 + OS2008 + BT GPS in late December?

Just from looking at the Wayfinder page I thought that this would be only available for the N810 and the only option for a N800 would be the Nav Kit.

This bug should be fixed in map 2.2.8.143-1 and later.
This version is included from Diablo (4.2008.23-14) onwards.
You can check your version by entering "dpkg -l map" in a terminal window.

Can someone please check this again and report back at https://bugs.maemo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2485 or by private email to me?

Thanks a lot in advance!