VZ Navigator: GPS on the Cheap

You'll know which way to turn with this simple, feature-packed service that turns your cell phone into a navigation device

by Catherine Holahan

Editor's Rating:

The Good: An inexpensive way to help you get where you're going

The Bad: Delays in recognizing route deviations and recalculating directions; unable to handle multiple stops

The Bottom Line: A handy tool for those who don't stray from the beaten path enough to invest in an expensive system

Reader Reviews

My nasal compass is broken. Blame it on allergies, iron deficiency, or evolutionary defect, but I have no innate sense of direction. Worse, I tend to blindly associate south with whatever direction appears to slope downward from my current position.

So I knew I'd be in trouble during a recent trip to San Francisco, a city with hills sloping in seemingly every direction. However, I wasn't about to spend $300 to $1,000 on a global-positioning-system device from TomTom or Garmin (GRMN) for a week-long trip. After all, I don't own a car, and I get around just fine walking Manhattan's grid, where most streets are numbered and increasing values indicate north or west.

Get Going

Luckily, my cell-phone company, Verizon Wireless (a joint venture of Verizon Communications (VZ) and Vodafone (VOD)), offers a GPS service for people in my very predicament. For roughly $10 a month, or $3 a day for those in need of only brief directional assistance, the service can turn certain compatible handsets into solid navigational instruments, complete with interactive maps, local search, and a clear, confident voice to direct every turn.

The VZ Navigator service, powered Networks In Motion, is easy to install. Just a click of a button downloads the software right to the phone, which needs a built-in receiver to pick up GPS satellite signals. VZ Navigator never had trouble finding my location anywhere in California or in Boston, where I had traveled the prior weekend. It also had a similarly easy time locating me in New York City, despite all the tall buildings that often dull my cell-phone signal.

To start using the service, I had to change my phone's settings to enable Verizon to track my whereabouts. (Being generally wary of Big Brother, I'd originally set my phone to forbid anyone not associated with emergency services from pinpointing my location.) Then, with a click on the "getting going" option, I was ready to plot my course from somewhere outside Golden Gate Park to San Francisco's Mission District to BusinessWeek's Silicon Valley bureau.

From Point A to B

The application is intuitively designed. In addition to the basic navigation feature, where you type in where you're going, there are icons to see general maps for your location, get directions to bookmarked destinations that you frequent, or conduct a local search. A click on the keypad is all that's needed to transition from a search for nearby restaurants—say, the nearest In-N-Out Burger—to a map with directions to the newly identified address.

Maps displayed clearly, even on my Motorola (MOT) v325's relatively small screen. Routes were marked with a bright purple line. I could zoom in for a street-by-street view or zoom out for a more general sense of the neighborhood. Each map I used appeared up to date. There were no phantom street names, and the service never suggested I turn right on a one-way street going the opposite direction. Similarly, the listed distances to the next turn were typically in sync with the readings on my rental car's odometer. And it was able to, more or less, keep track of the progress I was making on my route.

A Couple of Shortcomings

The only annoyance was VZ Navigator's delayed response to route deviations, intentional or otherwise. When I made a wrong turn, the service sometimes took too long to recognize that I was no longer on the specified route. That, in turn, meant a delay in delivering revised directions in a timely manner to get me back on track or provide an alternate route. The lag in reorientation seemed to depend on how badly I had ignored the system but typically lasted less than a minute. Still, at 60 miles per hour, a minute can mean a missed exit.

One arena where VZ Navigator doesn't seem to hold up to more expensive models is its inability to plan long trips with multiple points of interest. The Garmin StreetPilot GPS unit that came with my rental car, for example, was able to plan a trip from Napa Valley to my friend's house in San Francisco by way of the steepest point on Lombard Street. VZ Navigator only lets you plot starting and ending locations. However, given that VZ Navigator costs less per month than the $10 per day my rental agency charged for an in-car GPS system, such limitations seem a reasonable trade-off for the occasional traveler.

Holahan is a writer for BusinessWeek.com in New York.