I've just moved to Redmond and as you can imagine finding my way around is fun (especially as they drive on the wrong-side of the road here!

I bought a paper map, but that's not very good at helping me when I've not got a clue where to go or, like today, I've left it on the table at home!

I was going to get a TomTom or similar GPS navigation device but I've not got around to it yet

Luckily in my hour of need the answer lay on my Windows Mobile phone, in the form of the Windows Live Search beta (which I'd installed the day before but not had a chance to play with

As I knew where I was (although if you have a GPS you can make them talk nice thanks to the wonders of Blue Tooth) I was able to look up where I was going (thank you Mobile.Live) and plug that into the mapping software and get a route plotted for me in seconds. I love turn-by-turn instructions and traffic info.

The best bit is that I got where I needed to be, on time and stress free. Even over GPRS the data flows into the phone quickly enough to be useful and it's as interactive as the web based mapping apps.

Oh, if you don't have PC access to install it you can download it over-the-air from http://wls.live.com/ for WM5 or J2ME powered phones.

The folks over at Gizmondo have done a review of this app vs the Google mobile Maps app. In summary they say if you need this functionality don't bother with the Google download