OK, so thinking that anything has to be better than the inbuilt JLR Nav, I took the plunge on the TomTom In-Dash. After I purchased it, there was a 'Refund' button in google play next to the 'Open ' button where there would normally be an 'Uninstall' button. I was thinking that this must be like a trial period... however after I actually got to try and used it connected to InControl a few days later, the 'Refund' button was replaced by the 'Uninstall' button. So no refund for me :-(
After trying this one and also the Genius maps (and previously Sygic) , it seems there is a 'thing' among these GPS apps to not show the vehicle speed on the dash screen, maybe they know it will not match the speed as indicated on the speedo and so have been 'prevented' by JRL from including it.
Also, whenever an alert comes up (like a speed camera or over speed alert) the alert will kill whatever radio you might be listening to, in a similar way that a bluetooth phone call will. But in this case the radio sound never comes back again. While guidance will come through relatively ok, if you are not doing routing and are expecting alert tones, they never actually sound, so all you get is no sound at all - not particularly useful.
The Sygic app supposedly has a feature that will alert through the phone only, which would mean that you can continue to listen to the radio during the alerts, but that does not seem to work on my phone , a Sony Xperia Z5 running Android 7.1.1 . I will re-test with a Samsung S5 which i think did work when I first tried Sygic a few weeks ago.
The TomTom In-Dash is quite basic and does not seem to have any configurable speeds or distances in the alerting, so you don't really know what speed over the limit the alert it is set to, or how far away the speed camera might be. At least it gives good traffic info and routing info, and its maps are up-to-date. Another thing is if you are using one of these GPS apps, then you cannot use other InControl apps like Spotify.
Also, note that when you are using InControl apps, that your phone screen goes dark and you cannot use the phone for anything else. Below is a picture of the Sygic alternate screen on the InControl dash screen, it has some more detail than the Sygic main screen, which it will revert to after some seconds of displaying the alternate screen. (I had to use a 2nd phone to take the photo)
I tried running them disconnected from InControl, ie displaying on the phone screen only. The alerting sill goes through the bluetooth connection, killing the radio for several seconds longer than is really needed, but at least it then comes back again. But the standard LR USB ports in the cubby box do not produce enough power to run the phone with the screen on and GPS running - the phone gradually loses charge. You can fix this somewhat by using a more powerful USB adapter in the 12v outlet.
So, are any of these (when connected through InControl) better than the JLR nav on the dash? Yes, Sygic and TomTom will give you up-to-date maps, on-screen alerting for speed cameras and speeds, easier to read screens. I was less impressed with the readability of the Genius maps. Just don't try to use the sound alerts through the dash.
But, I think I will ditch these and just use an Offline Maps app on the phone instead. I now have a Brodit clip to install the phone on.
(Edited for some minor updates and include a photo.)
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