The Latest Thing in 'phone offline SatNav?

[Forg]

After the shock of something like $13/day to rent one of the dodgy SatNav devices that car rental companies rent out, I started looking at how to get SatNav on an iPhone SE. There's no guarantee that the rental will have SatNav (and I believe in some countries the rental company will even disable a SatNav system so that you rent a unit), and my old Garmin Nuvi is too old to get updated maps.

The things I'm after:
(*) offline mode for entire countries (this precludes Google Maps & also Apple Maps)
(*) directions, not just maps (I think most do this these days)
(*) the app is for an iPhone SE (I intend to get a generic windscreen-suction-mount-thingy & car-charger)

I think my current "safest bet" is the TomTom Go app, which is free (or ~$1) but appears to cost ~$20 for a year's subscription; however NavTeq maps should be pretty up to date.
The best free SatNav apps appear not to be able to store an entire country, but I'm not entirely sure (I might have to start downloading & installing & checking & uninstalling to find out).

What do others use?

 

[Townsend]

We always download Google maps of the countries that we are going to. You can store them to use when you are off line.

 

[Forg]

We always download Google maps of the countries that we are going to. You can store them to use when you are off line.

I know about this feature, and don't have WiFi access at the moment to test it; but I believe it doesn't have the capability of downloading an entire country at a time.
Is that incorrect?
In my (limited) experience WiFi can be flaky, so I'm not sure I'll be able to download the entire next-day's travel every day (plus I'd prefer not to have to do that if I can avoid it).
I'll maybe have to try downloading the UK tonight ...

 

[Townsend]

I am a little vague but my husband has downloaded some countries eg Iceland. We used it a few weeks ago.

 

[VPS]

I use Sygic - it does cost but you can usually get a good deal and then download the countries you want.

 

[ozjuice]

Maps.me i have used and you can download total countries. I just find google maps with a local sim card is the best way though.

 

[opusman]

Sygic is the way to go, since you buy it outright and they have free updates forever. They use TomTom maps I believe. If you get it on sale you can get the whole world for under $100.

You can also cache Google maps for offline access.

 

[Wanderlust_tim]

Maps.me i have used and you can download total countries.

Used this in East Timor last year and loved it.

 

[daft009]

you can also try:

HERE WeGo on the App Store for ios
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps&hl=en_AU for android

 

[amaroo]

I'm a Sygic user. Have used it throughout Europe, Nth/Sth America, AUS, NZ, Asia .... no complaints.

 

[Forg]

By way of a follow-up, Google Maps appears like it may be the way to go.
But it's definitely going to have to be over WiFi.

It stores the maps on the 'phone under "local area" or "custom map". I chose "custom map" and selected a rectangle of southern UK going from approximately Cardiff to Cambridge (so including London which I imagine is a disproportionate amount of data given the size of the area). It saved the custom map with a very imaginative name of "Map 1" (can't remember if I was able to choose a name), and I assume I will be able to delete that map if I need to.
The map is about 1.5GB, although I think it was downloaded compressed as it only used about 900MB of data.

So it seems with Google Maps you can choose quite a large area, and you can easily manage maps for the purposes of not running out of storage on the 'phone. I'm used to using it, so think I'll stick with it.

 

[RooFlyer]

Go Sygic. Its a case of you get what you pay for.

If you do a search on AFF, there have been a few threads like this; I think Sygic has always won people over.

Download maps at home, then its 100% off-line. Download entire countries, or just regions, if that's all you need.

 

[Forg]

Yes Sygic does get good reviews, and being NavTeq maps (same as TomTom) they should be up-to-date pretty frequently.

I've never used a handset as a SatNav, once I get the suction-cup windscreen-holder thingy I'm going to trial the free option (Google Maps) and then go Sygic if Google Maps doesn't suit.

 

[serfty]

Note that with Google Maps you can choose to download/store your offline maps on SD card if your device permits (i.e. most android).

 

[opusman]

I switched from suction cups to an air vent mount a couple of years ago, never looked back.

 

[kookaburra75]

We always download Google maps of the countries that we are going to. You can store them to use when you are off line.

I know about this feature, and don't have WiFi access at the moment to test it; but I believe it doesn't have the capability of downloading an entire country at a time.
Is that incorrect?
In my (limited) experience WiFi can be flaky, so I'm not sure I'll be able to download the entire next-day's travel every day (plus I'd prefer not to have to do that if I can avoid it).
I'll maybe have to try downloading the UK tonight ...

Note that with Google Maps you can choose to download/store your offline maps on SD card if your device permits (i.e. most android).

As the others have said, the size of the area you can download with Google Maps is dependent on the storage available on your phone. With my android phone, the SD card has to be set up as Removable Media before I could select the SD card in Google Maps, as a location to store the off-line maps. I'm not sure how an iPhone works though.

With my 64GB SD card, I can easily save enough maps to get me around the UK, especially where I can't get data reception on Vodafone.

 

[Scr77]

you can also try:

HERE WeGo on the App Store for ios
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.here.app.maps&hl=en_AU for android

I use here we go and it’s great. Free and easy to download the countries or states you want. The navigation worked well in Europe. I have on iPhone SE (use when on foot) and an old Samsung (use in car).

I pair it to a Bluetooth speaker that fits in a drink holder.