In a nutshell…

Nokia’s spiffy GPS software updated with all new features… and an all-important pedestrian mode.

What’s it good for?

Finding your way, and finding new places to visit.

Judgement time…

Considering the task in hand, Nokia Maps was always a sturdy piece of software. Delivering quick(ish) navigation with voice prompts and GPS, as well as thousands of points of interest, searchable by name as well as location.

The new version takes that stonking performance and does nothing but improve on it.

The new version of Maps is seriously quick. Testing it on an N95 8GB, it’s clear there have been tweaks to both the map application itself, and the software’s GPS triangulation. Where the original frequently struggled to find our location, Maps 2.0 had us pinned down in under a minute. Impressive, especially considering we were indoors at the time!

The new home screen also improves on the previous version, offering up a handy search box, more detailed GPS details than before and, for those not using an uncapped data tariff (shame on you!) a handy counter showing the amount of data transferred per session.

The result is refinement all round, but there’s much more under the bonnet of Nokia’s map app. For a start the Big N’s added a pedestrian mode, that’ll keep you clear of motorways and provide accurate directions along bridleways, footpaths and through shopping centres (assuming there’s a road through the middle of them.)

Elsewhere, Nokia’s boffins have tweaked Maps 2.0 with live traffic information, a hybrid map mode, showing satellite images along with road names, and loads more points of interest.

It’s a welcome move, and while we struggled to get accurate information from the traffic information service, Nokia says it knows of bugs here and is working to fix them.

The final seal of approval has to come from Nokia’s decision to continue offering Maps as free software. It’s amazing that all this is available without a fee, and testament indeed to the power of the Nok. Get downloading!