First things first - I combed through the phone's applications to see if there was something I could use out of the box. There was Nokia Maps 2.0 preloaded, but I found that it only has the major roads in Mauritius. In short, it was useless for me. I then looked online for the famous Google Maps, and to my utter dismay, it was worse than Nokia Maps. This left me with one option - to look for a commercial solution.
Naturally, on the mention of GPS, two names come into mind: Garmin and TOMTOM.
I decided to try Garmin first, as it is supposedly more popular. I looked on garmin.com to see if a) There is software that can be installed on the Nokia E71, b) There are detailed maps available for Mauritius. Both were available - but the Mauritius maps are made by a third party partner for Garmin - called Garmap (www.garmap.com) . I was happy to find that Garmin Mobile XT 5.0 that i quickly downloaded and installed to the gadget. I bought a license and unlocked it right away. I later downloaded and installed the Garmal Indian Ocean Streetmaps v 1.0, unlocked it and lo! I was absolutely ready to navigate!
In summary, I can report that the Garmin solution works well on the Nokia E71, but not perfectly:
- Sometimes, it may take forever to get a satellite lock. When i reboot the phone, it works right after. Another quick hack is to open Google Maps or Nokia Maps first, which takes much shorter to acquire satellite lock, then close it right away (or leave it in the background) and open Garmin Mobile XT. Even with AGPS on, this seems to be my problem, and that of many E71 users out there.
- The software must be unlocked for it to detect the internal GPS chip.
- It is not very accurate sometimes. A reboot also fixes this nuance.
- GPS is a battery hog for the E71 - invest in a car charger.
- Garmin Mobile XT is designe really for friving, not walking.
