[Acorn]

I tried using the search but it just led to confusion. Will the Garmon Blackberry GPS application work with the storm. Is the GPS unlocked or do I have to pay a fee. Futhermore will it use a true gps position or triangulate my position using towers.

[DaveS024]

it works great 1 time fee, and its very accurate

[psufan5]

I think the program needs a LOT of work. It has problems locating where I am half the time, and the maps are horrible. It likes to zoom out so you can only see your trip, not adjacent streets. It doesnt utilize the phones AGPS features, so it has issues detecting where you are inside. Why is this a problem? Well if you wanted to plan a trip, would you rather do it on your couch, or from your car?

VZ Nav is better at this point. Crisp clear maps, and very accurate.

[Acorn]

it works great 1 time fee, and its very accurate

1 time fee to whom. verizon or do you mean the 99 dollar garmin application fee

[shaggymatt]

The Garmin GPS solution, like the VZ Nav solution, both offer web based planning. You can add an address from the Mobile Garmin site, and it shows up in your locations on the Storm, automagically. Another plus for the Garmin, is that this service is performed silently, it is there when you come into the app. For VZ Nav, it automatically launches the VZ Nav application when it receives your push from the site configured route. I do NOT like that.

The VZ Nav solution is a battery HOG. It literally takes the bar down one battery upon launch to displaying your first route. Yes. It zooms right into the streets. The Garmin doesn't do this, which is probably why the batter life is vastly superior with the Garmin. I used it for an hour and a half trip the other day to look at a rescue dog. Back light on the entire time, voice prompts, and my battery bar didn't move from showing all bars. When I got to the town (near State College) it zoomed in for the tight navigation. I really don't feel a need to know the names of all the side streets as I'm driving along the highway, and certainly not at the expense of the battery.

Both the VZ Nav and the Garmin solution had issues when I detoured from the planned route. I obviously know my way home from work and the most effective routes during rush hour, but I wanted to see how they route me using their traffic features. Both send me into the main bottleneck of Harrisburg traffic, likely because it prefers highways, and not many of the highways are covered by the service. And certainly not secondary roads.

VZ Nav took five minutes before it found me again coming back from Erie, when I was in a small town, going to a diner it found for me, which ended up the info was so out of date, that the place hadn't existed for a LONG time. We had to pull over with a screaming 18 month in the back of the car till it found itself again. Inexcusable.

My only gripe so far with the Garmin is that there is no way to clear out your historical destinations.

A huge benefit, and ultimately the selling point for me, is the gas price feature for the Garmin. Unlike the VZ Nav solution, you can tell it to sort by fuel grade. I can only run premium in my car, so the low price search from VZ Nav, based on regular grade does me no good. Some stations only charge $.10 more for premium over mid, while others are $.20 (or even $.30).

Both will show your route if signal is lost, with no maps.

Interestingly, side by side with my Garmin Nuvi 200, it plans out different routes.

[shaggymatt]

1 time fee to whom. verizon or do you mean the 99 dollar garmin application fee

One time $79 to Garmin for the lifecycle of your phone platform (ie. Storm with phone xxx-xxx-xxxx).

Or $8-$10/mo. to Verizon. Upwards of $240 for a two year phone lifecycle.

[shaggymatt]

Oh and the only thing using cell triangulation is the Google Maps not making use of the GPS.

By a stretch, you could say that aGPS is triangulation, but not in the same sense. Triangulation is an approximation, whereas aGPS registers to the tower to assist in satellite locating.