New Fascinate Owner: I understand the BING hate.

[larry0071]

I had the Imagio and ran Bing on it and prefered it for everything over the Google products (I had Google Maps installed as well, but did not like/use). When I got the Fascinate, I quickly see why many of you folks hate it. Verizon De-Nutted the Bing software! On the Imagio it had voice guided turn by turn, on this it has a lame map that has no voice and you have to manually advance each instruction screen during the trip or it stays on instruction line #1 the entire time. That and no voice makes it terrible. Someone needs to get the real live full version of Bing and make it a cab file (or whatever you use for these Android phones) so we can download and get the whole Bing experiance.

I also tested the Bing voice to text search and found it was trashy compared to the Imagio. I said "Kawasaki Motorcycle Dealership" and it gave me Kawasaki Heavy Industries and a bunch of corporate Kawasaki sites, but not the Kawasaki Dealership 7 miles from my house. The Imagio would do the same, but you then simply hit the "Local" tab on top and it showed my dealer. The Fascinate has a crippled version of Bing.... it is not Bing's fault, I am sure it is so customers find that if they want good directions they need to slam $10 a month to Verizon for the software they use for GPS. I think it's crap, but I guess it is what it is.

I miss the real Bing!

 

[sean76]

Truthfuly, Bing as a whole, watered down or full force does not have any business being on any Android device! Vzw shot itself in the foot with that one, I just prefer Google, its why I own an Android device in the first place. Its easy to overcome on the Fascinate, I downloaded Google maps from the market, and have Google bookmarked on my home screen, good enough for me!

 

[saps]

While I of course agree with the preference for google over bing I think we all understand why verizon did the deal $$$$$$.

 

[II Kings 9:20]

Truthfuly, Bing as a whole, watered down or full force does not have any business being on any Android device! Vzw shot itself in the foot with that one, I just prefer Google, its why I own an Android device in the first place. Its easy to overcome on the Fascinate, I downloaded Google maps from the market, and have Google bookmarked on my home screen, good enough for me!

Maps are fine, one can do this on the iphone but no voice turn by turn. I really need to know if you have Google turn by turn voice navigation on your SF

 

[tonyb81]

Truthfuly, Bing as a whole, watered down or full force does not have any business being on any Android device! Vzw shot itself in the foot with that one, I just prefer Google, its why I own an Android device in the first place. Its easy to overcome on the Fascinate, I downloaded Google maps from the market, and have Google bookmarked on my home screen, good enough for me!

Well to be the devils advocate here Android is "open source" its designed to let people mess around with as much as they want.

 

[jamesnmandy]

Maps are fine, one can do this on the iphone but no voice turn by turn. I really need to know if you have Google turn by turn voice navigation on your SF

Yes of course. It is called Google Navigation. Its as good or better than VZ Navigator and its free. As good as any gps turn by turn spoken navigation I have ever used.

 

[saps]

Yes of course. It is called Google Navigation. Its as good or better than VZ Navigator and its free. As good as any gps turn by turn spoken navigation I have ever used.

QFT absolutely

 

[larry0071]

What angers me is that BING does the very same voice guided, turn by turn as Google and also have "starred" places (favorites or waypoints) and does map and/or satalite view, does real time traffic, avaid tolls, avoid highways (for motorcycle riders!) and more.... but the big V took a chainsaw to the software and removed 75% of what BING really is! If your going to OEM ROM the thing with MS BING, at least give me the whole dang thing, not the half that makes me hate it!

I totally agree, it is all about trying push the average user over to the paid subscription to Verizon Navigator. Those that use the forums will discover that these so called premium features that V charges for are actually standard features in both the real BING package and the Google package. I don;t care what brand name you slap on the software... be it BING or Google, I just want the full user experiance that I deserve and expect without being forved to pay a premium for it.

I have installed Google Maps, at least until I find a non hacked up version of BING. I already all my favorited (star items) saved in my BING account, so if that comes out for the Android OS, I'll go back to it.

 

[SirKronan]

Yes of course. It is called Google Navigation. Its as good or better than VZ Navigator and its free. As good as any gps turn by turn spoken navigation I have ever used.

Seconded. I really like it. And since I haven't had the GPS issues on the Fascinate that others have (so far), I recommend it wholeheartedly.

 

[sean76]

Yuppp turn by turn is alive and well! And I got zero issues with GPS..all good