Google Maps 5 is now out for Android fully featured with 3D rendering, map drawing and offline reliability.

Google Maps was using images for street maps and lines for the vector coordinates and now it comes with 3D. This means is that you can tilt, rotate 360 degree and see what a tree, house, building actually looks like… Could prove dangerous in the wrong hands though!

The other cool feature enables us to use 70% less data loading while the images load; meaning faster and quicker results and snappier zooming.

The third feature, offline reliability helps us to see and then view the same stuff offline if the connection is lost. Because of the second cool feature of vector maps, the results load faster and henceforth can be viewed offline – no need for network.

The app does need 2.0 or higher for the features to work well. The app will run on the older version 1.6 but the new features wont run. If the smartphones does not support multi-touch, you are bound to face a problem while trying to tilt the houses, trees and buildings. Other than these two downsides, the app is a blessing.