David Pitkin

I arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico and needed to get to the other side of the 100 mile island to the HP Plant in Aguadilla. I was already familiar with the roads near the plant but getting out of San Juan and across the island in a rental car was another matter. The map that Avis provided was in English (a plus) and that was all I had provided to me.

I did however pack my new N800 Navigation kit, as I sat in my cool blue Chevy Malibu I attached the horn looking mount to the windshield and fired up the n800. Oh crap there are not maps of Puerto Rico included! I could have checked before I left but other things were on my mind. Ah well I used the Avis map to navigate out of the city and onto Route 22 a road with many tolls that went directly across the north coast of the island to my destination.

As I drove across the island I thought to try the Nokia Maps application on my N80. One of the cool things about the N800 nav kit is that the GPS is a bluetooth model that works with other devices. It connected right away and started to download maps via GPRS! I had roads in Puerto Rico abit on a small screen. I was in business and was confident in my location and where I was going. I was a little bored so I thought why not try out the turn by turn navigation option but I knew already that you had to pay to enable it. I asked for a route and it connected over the network, when you click start navigation a prompt to purchase shows up. It actually offers you a few subscription options such as 1 day, 7 days and 1 year and 3 years. I chose the 7 day option for 11$ USD! Voice guides were downloaded and I was in turn by turn navigation mode, nice.

Now the screen on the N80 is small. This led me to attempt to get some sort of maps on the N800 and load up Maemo Mapper. Now this grey market program can connect to the same Bluetooth GPS and downloads maps from a URI to Google, Microsoft or any other map provider. This is not entirely okay with the copyright restrictions on the maps but was downloading maps through another bluetooth connection to my N80 and on the windscreen. Score update.

Now I already know the few roads around Aguadilla and the North East corner of the island so cruising around with the N800 works great for a few days.

On Friday evening I made the trek back to San Juan. And started right off with Nokia Maps, at first it told me that it was back in an unlicensed state! I attempted to buy another license and it correctly told me that it was already licensed and started to work again. It was an easy ride back across the island. No points awarded since Maps crashed the phone when I attempted to redial a call from my bluetooth headset. I am still impressed that it tried, this little device was connected to a bluetooth GPS, downloading maps and route information from a GPRS connection as well as making phone calls back to the US, all of this in the Caribbean ocean and 1,600 miles from home.

Back in San Juan and near the aeropuerto. I needed to find the Courtyard Marriot where I was staying. Hmm Nokia Maps has no POI database in San Juan, I did a search for Marriott and it returned a few hotels in Florida (only 900 miles away) and even a few in Boston! How useless is that. Okay we have even more technology here. I called the hotel first and got some directions that I could follow. I also fired up Google Maps mobile on the N80 to find the hotel address. It worked as perfect as a Java app on an S60 device can first by prompting me to allow it to access the network and then by letting me triple tap the hotel name in. This is where it got really wacky. The addresses in Puerto Rico are in a mix of Spanish and English, so the Hotel shows its address like 7031 Boca… but Nokia maps could not find it. Never mind that in this area of San Juan near the big casinos there are a bunch of one way and confusing streets. I eventually wound up at the Hotel from the directions on the phone as none of the devices were any strong help except Google Maps!

I can’t believe how much stuff actually worked (like Nokia Maps and Google Maps) and how much at the same time I had traditional methods like paper maps and phone calls to actually get myself around. It was nice to have lots of options.