Skobbler

Price: From free

Platform: Android, iOS

Traffic: N/A

Performance: ★

Features: ★

Value for money: ★★★★★

Overall: ★★

Skobbler, with maps from the open-source OpenStreetMap project, was the first free sat-nav app to appear on the iPhone, and it’s now available on Android. You pay only if you want the speed camera data (iPhone only), and at £1.19 that’s hardly going to break the bank.

It’s understandably barebones, with no multi-point route-planning and no customisation. Like Google Maps Navigation (see p72), the maps are online only, so you can’t download data locally for offline navigation.

That wouldn’t be an issue if it was good at its job; alas, it was one of the more frustrating apps on test. Not because destinations were difficult to find – Skobbler’s address, postcode and local searches were accurate and fast. Nor was it because maps and audio were unclear.

It fell short simply because of poor maps and route choices. We can gloss over the odd error – it’s impossible to guarantee 100% map accuracy – but Skobbler managed five different blunders in an alarmingly short space of time. Twice it tried to send us the wrong way down a one-way street, twice it asked us to perform a U-turn on a busy high street, and once it directed us down a road that didn’t exist.

In our local test it seemed intent on sending us everywhere via a major roundabout, when more direct routes were available. It won’t pre-cache map tiles for your route, so if you lose data connection, you’re stuck; Google Maps has no such weakness.

Although it’s free, we can’t recommend Skobbler. If you’re desperate for cheap navigation on the iPhone, get Navmii; if you have an Android handset stick to Google Maps Navigation. Skobbler matches neither of them.