iGo Navigation GPS route calculation software for Android and Apple.
29th March 2018

First impressions:

iGo has been around for some time in dedicated GPS receivers but more
recently released their software in a form suitable for tablets and
mobile phones - this brief review refers to the Android version.

The software comprises, at least, two parts; the application and the
mapping data. The application may be downloaded free of charge and a
map of Australia/NZ may also be separately downloaded, FOC, for a
seven day trial. The download size is quite large with the
application being around 400MB and the Oz map 286MB.

Should you choose to purchase the product the prices are as follows:
App - Free
Oz/NZ map - A$27
Oz/NZ speed cameras - A$6
Oz traffic - A$11
Oz/NZ truck and caravan - A$11

Maps for the rest of the world are also available with the European
maps being A$36 and north America A$33 - pretty damn reasonable I
reckon. There is also an option to only download partial maps so eg.
if you are only going to Italy you can download just Italy and not the
rest of Europe. Then if you decide to go to France (as you should :) )
you can delete Italy and download France. Likewise with other places
I believe. I have downloaded Oz but not NZ although it is available
should I wish to. Lifetime map updates are FOC.

I purchased the Oz map and speed cameras about three days ago so my
experience is very limited.

Route calculation provides a number of options, Fast1, 2 and 3, Easy,
Short, Green, and the vehicle selections are Car, Pedestrian,
Bicycle, Emergency (interesting?), Truck, Caravan and others.

Planning a route I know well across Victoria the app chose very
sensible roads for the above variations and did a sensible change of
a couple of roads when I switched from Car to Caravan. I don't yet
know what the truck and caravan package does but I'm eager to see.
My initial impression of route calculation is that it's as good or
better than any GPS I've used.

The app provides voice guidance with a choice of male/female and
national accents. The voice guidance is brief and appropriate and may
be turned off.

Lane and junction visual indications are also provided and seem to
work well.

It also provides a large number of Points of Interests (POI) which
include, it seems, almost everything; petrol, hospitals, police,
toilets, cafes etc. And the "Help Nearby" feature looks like it could
be useful covering "Car Repair", "Health", "Police" and "Petrol" and
including phone numbers.

The app provides a large number of options for most aspects of its
operation and there is a learning curve here but the default settings
will suit most people most of the time I think.

I have used Ozi Explorer for many years, and shall continue to, for
all my off-road activities and a few dedicated GPS' for on-road
navigation but they have died or become outdated and I'm hoping iGo
will provide the route planning capability I need into the future and
especially when I become a full nomad. It looks promising and at A$27
to A$44 for all Oz requirements it is great value.

I'm currently running it on a new 5" smartphone and a three year old
Asus 7" tablet, it works well on both and the standard Android
licence permits me to run it on as many devices as are registered to
my account for just the single payment.

I'll report again in a few months when I have more experience.

https://www.igonavigation.com/