Navmii Android Satnav problems

unsure

HI All,
I'm hoping MSEr's may be able to help me out. I'm off to the US for a wedding shortly and was planning to use navmii gps satnav on phone. On previous trip a few years ago I used it's predecessor(?) Navfree which worked well.
My problem is that I've been running a test on Navmii for a couple of weeks in the Uk and it's been terrible! It takes ages to fire up and for voice guidance to kick in; sometimes it doesn't kick in at all. It seems to stop navigating and merely tracks our movement fairly regularly and it seems fairly hit and miss as to whether it will find address or postcodes. Several times it has just frozen.
I'm using it on an Android phone (samsung s111 mini) and I'm hoping somone might have some tips, advice and the benefit of their expertise to help me get it working better -- otherwise I'll have to bin it and buy a satnav with US maps (no way am I paying $200+ for satnav in a hire car for two weeks!).

Chino

The suggestions on this thread might be of interest:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5519546

bod1467

I use Navmii and it's been fine for me.

Have you tried to wipe the cache partition yet? And also try using CCleaner or similar? These might help with the issues you describe.

unsure

Thanks I did look at that thread but couldn't find any definite help.

unsure

Thanks. I'd never heard of clearing phone cache before. have tried to do so and will give Navmii another bash when I need to drive down to London in a few days.

BigAl94

Your phone is the problem, S3 mini doesn't have the ram or processor to run this app properly.

unsure

Okay thanks. Thats disappointing especially as on last US trip the now defunct Navfree ran perfectly well on a basic galaxy ace and worked really well.

bod1467

As with any app, things change and "progress" as phone hardware improves. I have a Nexus 4 (running Lollipop) and Navmii works fine (so far).

elektra

unsure wrote: »

Okay thanks. Thats disappointing especially as on last US trip the now defunct Navfree ran perfectly well on a basic galaxy ace and worked really well.

Navfree is back http://navmii.com/2015/12/03/navfree-returns-on-android/

unsure

Thanks Elektra,
That's good news. Have installed Navfree on phone and it seems to be running much better, have also installed Navmii on tablet and figure between the two we have a fair chance of getting to our destinations!

unsure

Update: We are now safely back home so I thought it might be useful to let you know how Navmii/Nav Free worked on Samsung S3 Mini in USA. In short they were both rubbish. Both proved very poor at finding US addresses either as street addresses or zip codes so route finding and directions were hopeless. After a couple of days we gave up on them all together.

What worked really well, however, was google maps on a Samsung Note tablet. By saving maps offline using wifi there was no data cost involved and the GPS and routing worked almost flawlessly. We did lose the directions and routing once while in thick fog up a high mountain in Virginia but apart from that it was spot on. My wife much preferred navigating on the bigger tablet screen, though of course it then required two people- driver + navigator, which wasn't a problem for us.

My recommendation for anyone looking for free satnav for use in USA would be google maps with area maps saved offline via wifi in advance. I've already uninstalled Navmii and Navfree and won't be bothering with them again.