Newer Nokia Maps 2.0 Released

Nokia released latest (and possibly last) beta of Maps 2.0 and it is available today for anyone with a S60 3rd Edition Feature Pack 1 device such as ourN95).

I’ve been really impressed by Nokia Maps 2.0 so far and use it as my day to day sat-nav with no reservations. It’s not perfect, but it’s as good as any of the other systems out there and I like the way you can choose to pay for actual voice navigation on an as-needed basis.

Changes noticed so far:
* Faster start-up; new start-up screen
* Street names on smaller roads; more detail on maps
* New ’striped’ indicator in satellite and hybrid modes, to denote lack of satellite coverage.
* Faster zooming & scrolling
* Map updates (seemingly there’s more building-shape data, at least where I live)

The previous 2.0 was already very nice. Routing is now mostly through the main roads and not byways. They make better use the screen and roadsigns etc… The routing is good, the voice information is good and if you miss it because of some reason, the display will fix you with the proper info. The POI search is pretty good, much better than Map24 or google search.

Earlier beta 2.0 did not cancel my 3 years subscription on the N95 classic. It works for the previous map 2.0. Besides you can alway reinstall your firmware and get rid of it. In this Nokia is no stinch. Then again this is what it should be.