Thinking about the lumia520

[fawny43]

I am thinking about getting the 520 because of price as well as the gps function.  I would love to know if the 520's  Here maps would also work in the US ?   Or because we are in Canada and the sim would be from Canada is it only those maps we would have access to.  We travel there a lot in the US and use an older garmin, but if the 520 works there no more garmin needed.  Hope you understand my question about the maps and the use of the gps in Canada as well as the USA in the 520.

[Silver_Arrow]

Yes! You can download entire countries maps. It would probably fill up a decent amount of storage if you do the US but that's not all. You can also do Canada, Europe and a heck of a lot of other places. And it all works offline, which if you are traveling to the US is a huge positive and worth the price of the phone itself. 

Below is Nokia's official witeup on Here Maps 

Spoiler

HERE Maps delivers a uniquely engaging map experience that gets you where you want to go and helps you discover something new every day. Even without an internet connection or network coverage, the dot on the map still shows where you are. Get directions and use voice-guided navigation to help you arrive safely whether you're online or offline. And thanks to LiveSight, floating map labels will appear on your screen and you will literally see where to go. With global coverage, HERE Maps goes wherever you go.

[fawny43]

Thanks for the link.   I was reading and watching verious reviews on the 520 and they pretty much all said that in the 520 the maps only work according to where the sim is from. I took it to mean that because I am in Canada and the sim and phone are registered in Canada it would only allow the maps to work in Canada. I was hoping this wasnt the case because I like the size and shape of the 520 vs the 620 but it says the 620 comes installed with the Here Plus that includes all the different maps and works all over the world whereas the 520 wouldnt.

[Silver_Arrow]

I'm not 100% sure, the only Windows Phone I have is an 8X  so no Nokia apps, but I am pretty sure it works.  It looks like you go to Settings > Applications > Maps > Download maps and select where you want to download and they will download over wifi. Again i'm not 100% sure,more like 99% sure but hey if you can't you can always return it.

[dmegatool]

You can in fact download all the maps that you want. The restriction about the sim card is for turn-by-turn navigation only.

So you can get maps and directions with the Here Maps but it won't work in the Here Drive app. You can unlock this restriction with the Here Drive+ licence which is 20$. I think the Drive+ licence is for 100ish countries.

Just tested on my Lumia 520 and this is exactly how it works. I downloaded the map of New-York and New-Jeysey just fine. I can use Here Maps to find directions there but when I'm trying to use Here Drive, it ask to update. I'm in Canada... 

[dmegatool]

As for the size of the maps, it's like 130MB per province/state. Note that this CAN'T be store on the SD card. The card is only for picture, videos and music. 

Quebec = 98MB

Ontario = 170MB

New-York = 165MB

New-Jersey = 105MB

...

Whole USA is 2,7GB

Whole Canada is 514MB

[Silver_Arrow · Accepted solution]

Even at an extra $20 that is still an amazing price for a GPS device as it does that and much much more.  The  520 has 8 gigs internal so you can expect around 6 gigs to use which is more than enough to store the places that you need.  And you can also use it as a camera and to play games if you want to and show me a GPS that does that. 

[dmegatool]

That would be a little less that that.  The actual capacity is 7.28GB, then subtract more like 2.4GB for the OS leaves you with around 4.88GB.

I wanted to post a GPS that could play games just to rub it in your face but it's kinda hard to find xD 

And yes, even with the +20$, it's an incredible value. 

[Silver_Arrow]

Even 4.8 gigs. That lets you install NA maps and still have a few gigs left over for games adn a micro sd card for pictures.

[gwine]

Maps, definitely, can be stored on the sd card, using the new release of Storage Check (the app).