I expect many of you already know about this, I'm not sure where I was when it was released, but discovered the offline mode this evening.

You can save 6 'bits' of maps (in full, down to street view), and the max size is roughly 80mb each (a county, or the size of London in it's entirety is roughly about right) - I have just grabbed the vast majority of Cornwall in one lump, and will continue Eastwards as that's generally where I go

Pretty useful for the moments out of 3g (LOTS when coastal walking in Cornwall ), or for data-savvy people.

vid on how-to here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwcO8E66vtg

I'm pretty sure I'm rather late to the party, but a heads up none the less for those running Google maps on android ONLY

The only downside seems to be the map downloads are soooooo slow, even on my 78mbit Infinity 2