Updates To Free GPS Navigation: Nokia Ovi Maps 3.04

Nokia set their GPS Navigation service free at the beginning of this year. Currently standing at version 3.04, announcements about how Nokia Maps is getting faster, better, and more personal indicate that Nokia continues to work upon improving their Maps application even if it is free. Revenue wise, the upside of this presumably is that Nokia gets to tout "free GPS" as a selling point in its higher-end mobile phones.

This free worldwide Walk and Drive Navigating application for Nokia's current Series60 Symbian smartphones, has the following points as some of the improvements in Nokia Ovi Maps v3.04:
- Wi-Fi positioning feature to locate position of yourself more accurately.
- Faster graphical performance on Nokia N8, to display Zooming in and out of maps, tilting, and panning.
- More points-of-interest, consolidated from NAVTEQ, Lonely Planet, Michelin, and local Yellow Pages.
- Nokia Own Voice that lets you share and use over 4000 voice packs.

Downloadable maps that are fully usable offline continue to be available, compared to Google Maps for mobile which requires your phone to be connected to the Internet. Released in late-May, development keeps continuing on Nokia Ovi Maps to improve performance on smartphones that are already supported and to add support to newly released phones. At the time of writing, Nokia Ovi Maps is available on the following phone models:

Nokia 2710 Navigation Edition
Nokia 6700 classic
Nokia 6710 Navigator
Nokia 6720 classic
Nokia 6730 classic
Nokia 6760 slide

Nokia N97
Nokia N97 mini, Nokia N97 mini Gold Edition
Nokia X6 32GB, Nokia X6 16GB
Nokia 5230, Nokia 5235 Comes With Music
Nokia 5800 XpressMusic, Nokia 5800 Navigation Edition

Nokia N86 8MP
Nokia E66, Nokia E71
Nokia E5, Nokia C5, Nokia C6
Nokia E52, Nokia E55, Nokia E72

Own a supported phone? Preferably, make sure your Nokia mobile phone is running the latest firmware version available for your device/model. You can then install the Maps application, or upgrade if you already had it installed. Downloading the application (upto 10MB in size depending on phone model) can be done from the Nokia Maps homepage either through your PC or directly from your phone's browser.

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How Good is the Free Nokia Maps 3.03?
Review: Nokia Ovi Maps 3.03 Free
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