If you have been an ardent Nokia user, our topic on Nokia Maps won’t be a stranger to you. But what you might not know are the various new features that are included in Nokia Maps 2.0, which has already seen its first mass production launch on the Nokia 6220 Classic and Nokia E71, with many more to come on newer devices such as the Nokia 6210 Navigator and of course, the much awaited flagship model: the Nokia N96.

Nonetheless, we won’t be wowing you with these new-fangled Nokia hardware. Instead, we’ll be bringing you on a tour of Nokia’s software foray, one of which has seen its growth from its first iteration on earlier N-series devices and moved on, heading towards the future on the web, to Nokia Beta Labs and within their upcoming devices. But before we proceed further, you might want to update your current Nokia Maps to the updated version 2.0, so click here.

To make things more visible, we’ll be highlighting the main differences from both versions, and showcase the various improvements found in the later version.

Besides the omission of the “Nokia” brand in the loading screen, there really isn’t much to discuss. But what follows after is a sleeker interface that should make your mapping experience much easier.

As you might have noticed, with only two main navigation options on Maps 1.0, Nokia has enhanced the main interface with a new integrated search bar, and utilizes the main Ok button for your routing options.

While Maps 1.0 provided you with the option to view the selected area in either a 2D or 3D view, Maps 2.0 adds a third and fourth option, namely satellite and hybrid mode. As one might surmise, satellite view actually retrieves data imagery and loads onto your current map. Note that we’ve mentioned the word “load”, as an online connection is required to establish a data exchange and in turn, downloads the necessary satellite imagery according to your current coordinates. We mentioned about the “hybrid” mode, which is essentially a mixture of both the satellite imagery interspersed with the landmarks, points of interested and of course, the major roads that were included in the classic map view.

Though there is an integrated search field on the main menu, Maps 2.0 does allow you to utilize the search menu from within. The noticeable difference you’ll see on the old and new versions are the options that are presented to you after your search process. In all honesty, Maps 1.0 did win us over due to the fact that you are actually able to “Route from”, “Route to” or utilize the GPS function and “Navigate to” the searched location. With Maps 2.0, adding a route is still retained, but more often than not, the experience was a bit more convoluted than we liked. Do note that with Maps 2.0, the biggest addition will be the Walk function, as you can see with the separate “Drive to” and “Walk to” options. Designed to be a pedestrian friendly application, Maps 2.0 provides you with an alternative to how you travel. For example, we envisioned ourselves driving to a location, probably an open-air car park that’s close to our final destination. By utilizing the “Drive to” mode first, we can continue with the next step using the “Walk to” mode on Maps 2.0. We’ll further explore the benefits of integrating both driving and walking in a separate commentary article on Nokia Maps 2.0.

Directing your attention to the above image, you’ll see the GPS mode for both the first and second iteration. What you can see here, is a cleaner GPS interface, as apparent with Maps 2.0’s decision to include the directional arrow and the remaining distance under a single icon. Besides a cleaner interface, Maps 2.0 has a variety of map views to choose from other than the original 2D or 3D interface as seen on Maps 1.0.

Added viewing features include “Bird’s-Eye view”, “Manoeuvre view” and “Arrow view” as displayed from top to bottom. In essence, the first two views are just a renaming convention of both the 3D and 2D view respectively, whilst you have a very basic GPS interface that will only report the direction and remaining distance.

You’ll also see a brand new graphical interface when you choose Options during the device’s GPS mode. As seen from the above illustration, a variety of options such as 3D map view, data saving, day/night mode and many more are included within. Notably, you’ll see that there’s an added icon called Traffic Info that utilizes data connection to collect specific traffic status and information at your current location. For now, this service is not available in Singapore, but when it does land on our shores, you can expect accurate traffic info for minimal data charges.

Guides and navigational licenses were covered in our previous City Guides and Map Loader article. Once more, you can access additional guides in Maps 2.0, and unlike Maps 1.0, there’ll be more purchasing options. As seen, the basic “Guides” license will be available for purchase, and adding on to the new Walk and Drive modes, Maps 2.0 allows you to purchase two separate licenses based on either “Drive & Walk” or just simply “Walk”. Traffic info will also be up for purchasing, but as we’ve mentioned earlier, this service won’t be available in Singapore till a later date.

With that, we’ve reached the end of our introduction of what you can expect on Nokia Maps 2.0, so while we await for the arrival of the next dedicated navigation device, the Nokia 6210 Navigator, do keep yourself informed of more updates on Nokia Maps 2.0 right here at Nokia Zone!