GPS provider TomTom now offers a navigation app for Android smartphones. It offers detailed, turn-by-turn driving directions and pretty much lets you use your phone as a full-fledged GPS device.
At $38 for the US version, it’s kind of expensive for a mobile app. But that’s a lot less money than you’d pay for a dedicated GPS device. And since TomTom app for Android loads all of its mapping data onto your storage card, you can use GPS navigation even if you don’t have an internet connection.
As the folks at The Verge discovered though, there’s one small problem. While TomTom Navigation works with Android 2.2 and up, it only runs on phones with 800 x 480 or 854 x 480 pixel displays.
In other words, if you have a newer device with a higher resolution display like the Samsung Galaxy S III or HTC One X, the app won’t run.
TomTom plans to add support for higher resolutions in the future.
You can find a list of TomTom apps at the Google Play Store with prices ranging from $38 to $75 depending on the regions you purchase. Maps require between 215MB and 3.7GB of storage space, depending on which maps you choose.
Google Navigation works great on my Samsung Galaxy Nexus, and it was free. Of course I needed a data plan to use it.
I will check it out. If it does work, it would be neat to install it on my Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7inch tablet and have it tethered to my Samsung Galaxy S 3 phone. The Tab has a bigger screen and the battery last longer but it would not be a problem to have them both plugged into the ‘power outlet’ of the car while I am using them.