Droid vs. iPhone: Smartphone GPS Shootout

PC World - Getting lost ain't what it used to be. With most smartphones now sporting built-in GPS, we're running out of excuses for showing up late. And we wanted to find out which smartphone navigation application will get you to your destination fastest.

For this contest, we grabbed two of the most capable smartphones on the market: Apple's iPhone 3GS (AT&T) and the Motorola Droid (Verizon). Both feature large, touch-sensitive displays and robust processors that can handle serious computing tasks. More important for this test, both have GPS receivers that work with full-featured GPS navigation apps.

This is where the differences start: While the Droid comes with built-in Google Maps navigation for Android 2.0, the iPhone's top GPS tool is the TomTom for iPhone, a $100 download from the App Store. The features of these two products are so eerily similar that it's a no-brainer to make a head-to-head comparison.

For our test, we took the Droid and the iPhone 3GS on a wild, Bullet-style ride through the streets of San Francisco. With the same destination entered on each device, we took wrong turns, changed directions, and made a generally erratic spectacle of ourselves that bordered on public menace.

As we drove, we kept a close eye on each unit, noting which updated routes faster, which provided the most effective directions, and which offered the most helpful turn-by-turn instructions.

TomTom for iPhone

TomTom's fully-loaded GPS app costs an eyebrow-raising $100, but it does give the iPhone enough navigation features to rival most stand-alone GPS devices.

The program supports the iPhone 3G and 3GS, and it can also be used on the iPod Touch in conjunction with the optional TomTom Car Kit ($120). The app takes up 1.3GB of the phone's built-in memory, which forced the owner of our 16GB test unit to delete a bunch of music files from the device before installing it.

TomTom for iPhone uses the iPhone's 480-by-320 touchscreen to full advantage, offering turn-by-turn, voice-guided navigation with both 2D and 3D maps. The home screen lets you choose between a few options: You can enter a destination address, select a recently-used destination, search for a point of interest, select a point on the map, or pull an address out of your contact list.

We particularly liked the intersection interface for entering addresses. The app narrows down the list of available cross streets to include only those that intersect with the primary street you've entered. In a big city, this greatly simplifies entering your destination; you don't have to scroll through a seemingly endless list of streets.

Out on the road, TomTom's 3D maps offer a clear view of your immediate route that make it easy to spot your next turn without taking your eyes off the road for very long.