It's all change for Nokia Maps, with a new online version of Nokia's superb mapping and navigation service having gone live with some exciting new features to get to grips with.

Nokia Maps 3.08 Beta: five reasons to start your engines

Pop the maps.nokia.com address into your web browser and the first thing you'll pick up is that Nokia Maps has been given an all-new look, with an attractive blue finish and a cleaner interface to go with it.

But this is more than just a facelift. The first new addition worth noting is Heat Maps, a feature that gives you a whole new way of getting the lay of the land in a new city. You may already be familiar with the heat map approach to traffic, where areas of high traffic congestion are coloured yellow, orange or at worst red to show you places of highest concentration.

Well, Nokia hasn't just added Heat Maps for traffic to Nokia Maps, it's taken the exact same approach to show you where the highest concentration of restaurants, bars, tourist attractions or shops can be found in many cities around the globe. Zoom in up close and you'll be able to see just where the individual places and venues are that the maps are made up from.

So whether you're visiting a new city on business or pleasure, you'll instantly be able to get a handle on just where to go for the best restaurants and tourist attractions. A total of 56 cities situated all around the globe are supported, including London, Dublin and a whole host of cities on the European continent.

And speaking of cities near and far, there are new additions to the Nokia Maps 3D party too, including Cape Town, Melbourne and Sydney, extending the stunning 3D mapping service's already considerable international appeal.

If you're visiting any of those far-flung destinations you'll probably need a hotel to stay in, and with the newly updated Nokia Maps that's now easier than ever. You can now make a hotel booking from directly within Nokia Maps – simply search for hotels, then check out the hotels available in the area you're interested in. If you see the Book this hotel link, all you have to do is click and you're taken straight to a reservation page where you can make a booking.

Rounding things off, you can now leave your thoughts and post images on all those restaurants, hotels and the like that you found on Nokia Maps from within the service itself, helping to build an even more effective service for those coming after you.

It's a comprehensive overhaul to Nokia's mapping offering, and we'd love to hear what you think in the Comments once you've had a look.