Garmap for Mobile provides street maps for Lagos, FCT Abuja, Port Harcourt, Ibadan, Warri, and Ota amongst others. The application is available for purchase and installation on Micro SD card. Installation was pretty straightforward, and activation occured over-the-air (OTA) in a matter of minutes. I am running it on the E75, the very same device on which I have Nokia Maps 3.0, making for very good comparisons.

Features on Garmap for Mobile include:

• 3D map view (in Navigate view only)
• Day view and Night view
• On-screen Speed display during navigation
• Where Am I? Presents nearest address, nearest intersection, hospital, police station, and fuel station, current location in terms of latitude and longitude, elevation, and presents option to save this info – all on a screen
• Data Management: feature to track your movements (option to disable)
• Map/Satellite/Terrain modes
• Emergency Contact: a number you can quickly SMS your GPS co-ordinates to in an emergency
• My Contacts: allows you to assign a GPS position to phonebook contacts and/or call them from within Garmap
• Location messaging: Send your exact location in GPS coordinates to another GSM phone
• Recent Finds i.e. history
• Search places and addresses i.e. points of interests
• Voice Guidance, including turn-by-turn directions
• Route simulation: View route and destination on map before embarking on the journey
• Weather forecasts

My personal observation so far is that Garmap has more details on its maps than Nokia Maps 3.0. Having said that, there are streets that are listed on Nokia Maps that are not on Garmap for mobile, and vice-versa.

Though my initial impression is that Garmap for Mobile packs in more value, it may be best to wait till I have put both competing applications through their paces.

Screenshots:

Navigate: 3D View

Jibowu junction in 2D map view

Search results for air transportation facilities in Lagos

Murtala Muhammed International Airport

Adekunle Intersection of the 3rd mainland Bridge

Disclosure: I work for Alireta Nigeria Limited, an authorised dealer of Garmap for Mobile. Yet, I seek to present unbiased reviews in this first impression, comparisons and other reviews of Garmap and other mobile navigation services.

If you are of the opinion that I have been biased, please state so and point to errors in my review to illustrate your point.

One of the highlights of our visit was the demonstration of the navigation application on a Symbian-powered smartphone. Our initial impressions of the application based on the little time we spent with it are good.

First up, we noticed how simple it is to get the application up and running on the phone – a great plus for the application.

The next thing we are particularly impressed about is the user interface. The user interface, for the short time we spent with the application seemed intuitive, but we will give our final verdict on that after taking it through its paces in real life use. One thing is for sure, Garmap for Mobile got a lot of eye candy.

The application locked to our position easilly. We also tested Points Of Interests (POIs) on the application, and it delivered with no stress, identifying eateries, hotels all over the Opebi and Maryland areas.

At this point it is worth mentioning that JEJ Engineering has decided to send MobilityNigeria a complimentary copy of their streetmap application for us to review.

I must say that this gesture is commendable, and we look forward to having more mobile application developers and manufacturers borrow a leaf from JEJ Engineering/Garmap.

Our review (with pictures and videos) will be up as soon as we get the review copy promised us and put it through its paces.