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Review: smart2go - FREE off-line GPS mapping for Windows Mobile March 07, 2008 [General] | By Edward J. R. Nokia has purchased gate5 GmbH company, and now Nokia is giving away for FREE a GPS software that makes possible something that even Google Maps can't: off-line mapping with use of GPS. Online mapping is not a big deal because Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others offer it too, but with smart2go you can use GPS in combination with maps even when you are not connected to the Internet! So you can look around on the map with relation to your GPS location (note the circle in the middle): 
... and although you can't do navigation (route calculation) for FREE with this program (Nokia demands money for that), you can however use it as a FREE map with GPS support! How to do it? Install the program from smart2go.com website and then connect your Windows Mobile phone to WiFi and just go to the area, which you will be visiting in future. Then the maps are being downloaded over WiFi - presumably from Internet over your DSL or cable modem connection or your employer's Internet connection - completely for free - and then you disconnect from the Internet ... and then you just go to specific location and don't connect to Internet but instead just open the map with area in which you are and in this way you can use GPS maps without paying anything for it! Let's take a look at this program inside of Windows Mobile phone! First comes the splash screen: 
Here is the main menu of the program: 
And here are messages about Internet connection that you should ignore (otherwise Nokia will want you to pay money both for their navigation services): 
Note that you should go through the area that you are going to visit while connected over WiFi (at work or at home) to fetch map data to cache of the smart2go program: 
... otherwise if you don't do it properly you may encounter "the end of the world" or in other words the edge of cached mapping material: 
A nice feature is ability to go to your GPS position by selecting "GPS position" from the menu: 
Conclusion: since nowadays many Windows Mobile phones, even those low-end cheap ones, have built-in GPS and at the same time people don't want to pay either for mobile data transfers or for commercial GPS navigation software, it is good that Nokia offers GPS mapping (but not routing/navigation) completely for FREE inside of smart2go, that is available not just for Symbian phones but also for Windows Mobile! And "free" is a price that you can't complain about, particularly because smart2go is the only software for Windows Mobile that enables FREE mapping with GPS support that works also off-line (i.e. without the need to pay for cellular connection to the Internet).  Post your comment (free registration is required to post, but if you register you can edit your posts later) [ 9 Comments ]
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