I am going on a trip today. Multiple Stops with the Grand Kids. So, I decided to compare three of the systems. Bringgo, Google Maps and Waze. This will be a work in progress. But I can start my review now.
Adding Itinerary
I planned on going to 3 places with the kids.
Google Maps - I had never used it before, but found it was EXTREMELY Easy to create a route with multiple destinations. The voice recognition was perfect and found the places quickly. I was even able to easily arrange their order simply by sliding them to the right spot. I did this all in a few minutes. PLUS, I liked the fact it gave info on the places I looked up. Info, reviews, hours open, etc... Really nice.
Waze - I was able to set up a trip fairly easy with Waze as well. It wasn't quite as easy as Google Maps, but it did use google Voice and again found the places fast. Waze did allow me to set up a multi-stop route. Even has a calendar to set the time to get there, and it will tell me when to leave to be on time. It was different than Google maps. Not quite as quick and easy, but I did get it done in under 10 minutes.
Bringgo - I never got it done. Not a multiple route. In fact, until I went into settings and allowed my keyboard to work with google voice, BringGo wasn't able to accept voice, so I had to type it all in. Even typing it in was frustrating. Of all three places, when I just typed them in OR talked them in, they were NOT Found. It came up with results, but only one time out of maybe 20 tries, using the EXACT location name, did it ever find the place. The interface is just not at all user friendly. Even when I did the POI, then Town, Then state, which is a REAL PITA, I had a hard time finding the places. I finally gave up. After I left it for a while to cool down, I went back and tried some other things. I found if I type in, or said the EXACT street address, including town and state, it did find where I wanted to go. But how often do you know the Exact Street address of a place you want to visit? (Side story on this. Once I put in an address, but not the state, and it sent me to the wrong state first. States are close here, so took me a minute to catch on). Another issue was, when using the voice to search, and after it typed in the address for you, No search button shows. You have to close the voice box, but the X for the voice box is close to the screen, and sometimes I'd hit the screen, making me need to start over. Grrrrrr.... SO, Bringgo works, but it was NOT easy setting up the trip
Now, on to the actual trip....
Bringgo - I started with Bringgo because it was the hardest to set up. I did like how it displayed on the MyLink Screen, and how it showed two turns ahead. But if I had to actually make changes, it was too frustrating to do while driving. I couldn't easily Cancel routes, or find or add a new locations easily. And it seemed to run a bit slow. It really wanted to like it, but it was too frustrating and distracting to use, especially while driving.
Google Maps - I decided to use Google Maps next, because I knew it was missing a feature I likes on WAZE, but wanted to try it out. Once I started using Google Maps, it was like "Ahhh, this is how it should work".
One problem I had was when I got to a construction site. It re-routed me late, took me out of the way, and then brought me back into the construction site. I drove about 5 miles to avoid 200 yards of backed up traffic. But, I would think that's rare. Google Maps is so polished and professional. I liked using it, frustration free for the most part.
Waze - It doesn't have everything Google Maps has. The maps aren't as detailed. I can't see information on the places I look up, but it has some things I find I can't live without now. It shows me hazards, Police, gas prices.... All these things updated by OTHER Waze users. Real time. I did get re-routed badly at a construction site with Waze, just like I did with Google Maps, so they might be using the same navigation engine. But with either, as I said, it's probably rare. But I found Waze easy to use while driving.
My Opinion
Waze - I think it does everything I want for any road trip. It finds the places with a voice look-up, lets me add them to my favorites easily, has easy to see mapping/routes and shows me issues along the way. It has features the others don't, like real-time updates from other users. For most trips this is what I'll use now.
Google Maps - It's powerful and professional, and I will use it for looking up places to get distances, reviews, ratings and hours when I need stuff like that. I may even just use it as the map. But more than likely, I would put the places in Waze and use that instead, when I'm actually on the road.
Bringgo - It's has a lot of potential, but it's not close to being usable to me. It's not user friendly and lacks many of the features the other two have. And, it's slow, even on the phone alone. I wanted to like it, but it's so frustrating to work with. I am glad I was able to shut it off and turn on the others, otherwise I'd have been punching things. It's biggest plus is being on the MyLink, but to me that's not enough.
