[deelondon]

I have a Nokia 5230 - and the main selling point to me was the price with the Ovi Maps.

Ovi Maps is fine for walking but I think it's not good enough compared to a dedicated car Sat Nav, I'd go as far as to say it's potenitally dangerous.

I used it in the Uk to drive to Stonhendge with a TomTom running next to it as a backup in silent mode and think the software on the Nokia could get someone into a car accident.

First of all the speaker it'self is not really loud enough to be heard over a car engine at speed, together with wind noise, so you're forced to look at the screen much more then a dedicated SatNav.

When you zoom into the road to get a better view - the width of the road never gets wider, all that happens is the length of the road gets shorter, so you gain almost nothing by zooming in on the road in 2D view.

Then I found when you're driving and you lose signal the phone constantly bugs you to push buttons, asking you about what network to connect to. That was probably the most dangerous part of the experience to sudden have your maps overlays with annoying information in a moving car and having it asking you to push buttons on the screen.

OVI Maps is fine for walking around the city with but for use in a car it's seriously lacking.

[jimmyireland]

well then it aint any use to you in car but by foot its ok

[larkim]

I don't have any of those same problems with the 5230, apart from the volume which I agree isn't very loud.  Though with bluetooth turned on it streams through the stereo instead which works well.

I've never had any of the network prompt problems.  Perhaps to avoid the network problems switch to the offlline mode instead in OviMaps.

Matt

[deelondon]

I've just done a hard reset which actually seems to have made some speed improvements in the phone - got to reinstall the maps but lets hope there's some improvement there too - but I prefered the old version which actually showed you how strong the GPS signal was

My worry with using it in a car is someone could have a car accident in a moving car trying to clear the various messages off the screen should they lose signal, Nokia are now selling these kinds of phones with suctions cups so  they're targetting car drivers to buy their phones instead of a dedicated SatNav.

I've owned 8 different kinds of SatNav systems so I'm very familar with what works and what doesn't in a car.