When comparing Waze vs HERE, the Slant community recommends HERE for most people. In the question“What are the best GPS navigation apps for Android?” HERE is ranked 2nd while Waze is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose HERE is:
HERE maps allows users to download maps from more than 200 countries.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Notification about police
Pro Shows traffic speeds during rush hour
Shows red during heavy traffic along with mph, and orange for mild traffic.
Pro Route options
You can select the route icon and it will give you 3 options with milage and time to get you there if you want to choose your own route.
Pro Live routing and alert reports from other waze users
Each waze user has the ability to report traffic and road information changes as well as accidents, road closures, police locations and other alerts in real-time. This information is then displayed on the map to benefit other drivers and used to recalculate optimal route.
Pro Lists traffic accidents
Pro Wider availability of downloading maps from various countries
HERE maps allows users to download maps from more than 200 countries.
Pro Interactive 3D maps
There are interactive 3D maps for shopping areas and airports for 70 different countries around the world.
Pro Find places near you
You can find places to shop, eat, and almost anything with HERE.
Pro SD card support
Pro Voice-guided navigation
HERE has voice-guided turn by turn direction built into the app and is even usable when offline.
Pro Save maps for offline use
HERE allows users to save maps to their devices storage in order to allow offline usage of the app anytime.
Pro Has multilevel floor layouts for many airports and large shopping centers
Many airports and large buildings have an icon on them which, when tapped, opens up a 3D view of the floor plan with labelled locations of services, shops & transport etc. Includes an index for selecting each level of the building.
Pro Great smartwatch companion app
Excellent companion app allows navigation from your paired Samsung Gear S3 smartwatch. Has clear turn-by-turn instructions, vibration alerts at intersections, and zoomable location map (using rotating bezel). (Smartwatch app works with phone app and is not standalone).
Pro Includes public transport routing & schedules
Has train, ferry, bus etc. routes and schedules for many cities. The routes are overlaid on actual maps (spatially correct, vs the typical simplified diagrams of public transport networks) which I find reassuring and useful when exploring new locations. Also shows the schedules for next few services for any given station/stop. I'm not sure how accurate the schedules are though - they were incomplete for the small town where I live, but seemed more complete for major cities.
Pro Offline transit and walking directions
HERE is probably the only offline navigation app which has transit directions and walking directions when offline.
Cons
Con Advertisement supported
The advertisements usually shown when the vehicle is at rest, and they cover the entire screen. There is no way to get rid of them, it's strictly a free ad supported app.
Con Very high battery consumption
This app literally DRAINS your mobile. With an iPhone 6s, one can drive just a couple of hours before running out of battery.
Con Can freeze up when connected to Apple Play
Especially on iPhone 6s and Toyota Highlander 2020 pairing.
Bad routes, slow to determine where one is in a few locations (for example, exiting the highway and the exit is located lower than the highway).
Con GPS location is inaccurate
Con Map file size
Map downloads are huge in size, ranging from a few hundred megabytes, to a couple of gigabytes, depending on the size of the map being downloaded. Luckily, the app can be set to store them on external SD memory.