Windows Live Search For Mobile-Not Just For Phones

Gizmodo has an excellent review of Windows Live Search and declares it the winner vs. Google Maps Mobile on Windows Smartphones.

It's worth mentioning that Windows Live Search isn't just for Smartphones-it works great with my Axim 51v PocketPC both in its cradle and via WiFi. It's very responsive and navigation with the D-pad is quite good.

At left is a screen capture from my Axim, showing the conventional road view. This is with traffic updates enabled, so that every 2 minutes the maps update with the latest traffic details.

Seeing as it's a major pain to get Google Maps Mobile (or any other Java midlet for that matter) to run on a PocketPC, I declare Live Search the winner virtually by default of being the only contender for the platform. It's actually quite a polished application, though, so even if it had serious competition I'd probably still give it the gold star.





At right is the same map as shown above, but in aerial view.

To install on your PocketPC, just visit the Windows Live Search for mobile beta site with your PocketPC and download the CAB. Install as per usual and you're good to go. One hiccup I did encounter, though-it installs itself as Search in your Programs folder, or rather it tries to since I've already got a Search program there. So look for Search(1) in your Programs folder. It's a minor little quirk but you can always rename it later, right?