One reader asked me, if I know Navfree navigation. Of course I know it, but I haven’t wrote about it until today. So I take it today with me and here are my first conclusions. It is another representative from OpenStreetMap camp.
+ Excellent user interface.
+ After entering address you get a bunch of context items (even with Street View).
+ Free, but with ads and some payable options (voices, safety cameras…).
+ Excellent map feedback tool.
– Pinch-in and Pinch-out gestures don’t work. You have to use plus and minus button to zoom. Annoying.
– There is no route planner. It is very hard to prepare (or check) a route away from current or last GPS location.
– Not so many points of interests (POI), but it has Google search and this improves search for POI. A found a bug when I selected a route to one POI. An error “Cannot find a route” occurs.
– After the route was finished and program restarted, I found a rest of colored route on map.
– Catastrophic route planning. This can be a result of bad OpenStreetMap road categorization. After some disaster failures, I turn Navfree off. It tells everything.
– Navfree is stubborn, it insist on his route. If you turn away, it simply won’t change a route a long time. In the meanwhile it will rotate a screen as mad.
– I didn’t see any line assist and it can be, that Navfree don’t has it.
– Bad ETA (estimated time of arrival).
After good first impression, the Navfree flunks on its main thing – navigation.
Rating: 4/10 (check whole ratings table)