Breaking news – Nokia to provide GPS Navigation for free
Thursday, January 21st, 2010
This is only just been announced, so I’ll provide more comment later, but if you own, or are planning to buy one of these Nokia models:
- Nokia N97 Mini
- Nokia E72
- Nokia E52
- Nokia E55
- Nokia 5800 XpressMusic
- Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition
- Nokia 6710 Navigator
- Nokia 6730
- Nokia 5230
- Nokia X6
then as from today, you should be able to download a new version of Ovi Maps, which not just offers free GPS Navigation in over 70 countries, but offers more too…
- Free Drive navigation
- Free Walk navigation
- Free maps and map updates
- Free Events guides
- Free Lonely Planet guides
- Free Michelin guides
- Free Weather updates
That’s an impressive list, especially the guides and weather being free too. This is obviously a reaction to Google announcing plans to make navigation free for all, but with Nokia supporting offline navigation (with all the maps and routing being stored on the device) this is likely to be a much preferred solution for many (especially those travelling abroad where roaming data charges would make Google’s solution impractical for many).
We’re also hearing that traffic and safety camera information will be free too!
Nokia have stated they plan to increase the range of devices further in the future (I, like many others have already commented on the lack of the original Nokia N97).
For more information, head to the Free Navigation Forever page from Nokia.
Update: We understand the Nokia N97 is likely to need a firmware update first to be able to support the new version of the Ovi Maps (this is more about a lack of free space on the C: drive than anything in particular within the firmware), and it’s possible that the new Ovi Maps will be included within the firmware itself, and that we may see that firmware before the end of the month.
Update: We have seen a number of comments from Nokia that imply more of their “older” devices will soon be included within this Free Navigation programme, and we hope it covers the majority of S60 3rd Edition FP1 devices, especially those like the Nokia E71 which are still on sale today as brand new devices.
Update: It appears there will be a Free version for the Nokia N900 Maemo device, but this is some way off.
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