I have constantly been asked by many of my friends as to how I am able to easily navigate around any city that I have visited. From Bangkok, Singapore and even the Philippines, I have found an application that works in almost every major city in the world. The solution is an application that is free to download and use with out ads and is useable even without WiFi or Internet Connection as long as you have GPS on your phone - MapFactor Navigator.
I have in the past been constantly dismayed with having to rely on the internet to get to go around the city trying to find places that I have to go to. I would be going to Google Maps and downloading a cache of the map to use or taking a screen shot of it just to have a usable map. But those won't tell you exactly where you are in reference to where you have to be. Most of the other applications would also charge you a lumpsum per map you download to be able to use your phone to do turn by turn navigation. It took awhile for me to finally find this application, which I was quite apprehensive at first because it is still in its Beta Phase. I personally have a separate GPS navigator called the CarNavi that I can carry around but can be quite a hassle to bring with all the stuff I already have on me. Surprisingly, when I placed both the CarNavi side by side with my HTC One X and my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 it was able to track and guide me turn by turn to where I had to go. I was even able to save way points of favorite destinations and the accuracy was no different than the CarNavi. It even had roads encoded in the map that weren't on the CarNavi. It'll even indicate the globale standards of the rate of speed per type of road and will beep to warn you that you have gone over the speed limit and should slow down. The voice of the MapFactor Navigator is that of a British Woman and is quite easy to understand. It'll take some getting used to though for some of the terminologies, such as slip road means to take service road and sharp right or sharp left would more often than not mean to take a U-turn.
In retrospect after getting the MapFactor, I have found no use for my CarNavi and downloading offline maps is always a breeze. If you phone or tablet has a GPS feature and if you have enough space for the maps which roughly is about 95MB per country or city depending on size and density of location, you should be able to run the application quite seamlessly. I even had it running on the Samsung Galaxy Y. Unfortunately this is an application that is found in the Android Market because the iPhones are not equipped with GPS as MapFactor is dependent on this.
Has the MapFactor Navigator ever been wrong? Based on experience, only once due to a traffic re-route made by the MMDA but other than that it is quite accurate. If you know of other short cuts you can follow those and the MapFactor Navigator would adjust quite quickly with the route you choose to go to. Getting lost with the MapFactor Navigator is pretty hard as it shall always point you to where you have to go - Top view of Turn by Turn which ever you decide is suitable for you. I would recommend having a car charger ready though or bring along your charger or power pack as the MapFactor Navigator can drain your battery quite significantly because it'll stay on while you are navigating. Surprisingly though the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 didn't get drained too much and was able to hold a charge till I got home and was ready to sleep, which included regular use including calls(yes I call with my SGT2 hehe), text messaging, web browsing, and gaming. Personally I loved using the Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 P3100 with the MapFactor Navigator merely because everything was so big and easy to read.
Overall I am pretty pleased with the performance of the application. Only trouble I had was in Bangkok because the streets where in Thai and I think that is the way the maps shall be per location so I am presuming that once I go to Shanghai, the streets shall be in chinese. Other than that this application has been quite a life saver. A must have for those that wouldn't want to shell out an extra Php9,000 to Php15,000 for a separate navigator and also a must for those that travel a lot to places where internet is scarce. Remember as long as your android phone has GPS functionality and you have enough memory space for the maps you should be able to use the MapFactor Navigator quite easily.
To download the MapFactor Navigator simply Click on the link: Navigator or go visit the Google Play store on your Android unit.
Till Next Time
-Metz-
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