Things not to buy in 2014

[NW-Bound]

I will still keep the MS Street & Trip running on a netbook perched on the RV big dashboard for my treks. Stand-alone GPS or smartphones can't beat that big display which lets me look at my position on the route with a glance.

For a pocket GPS, as I am a latecomer to smartphones, I find that the small map display of the iPhone is quite pleasing because of its higher resolution than many standalone GPS's. I just do not want to stick my nose to it while I am driving.

And then, I already have the old Garmin 76 for hiking. It has WAAS, though the better accuracy over an iPhone is not really important. It is truly waterproof and will float if dropped in water. I will keep that GPS forever.

[SteveNU]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ERD50 Someone please correct me if I have this wrong, but as I understand it, your GPS app in your phone needs to access data for turn-by-turn directions and route planning. If you store the maps on your device, it will use the GPS w/o data to tell you where you are, but that's all (and might be enough for you). App descriptions are not clear on this, it seems to take some digging to distinguish between "here I am" functions, and" turn-by-turn navigation" functions. The typical handheld GPS device has the routing/planning and turn-by-turn built in. Phone apps go to the cloud for that stuff, so need a data connection. Pre-loading the maps may be able to help cut down on the amount of data, but that might all be app dependent. -ERD50

Check out copilot, I have it loaded on my tablet. You download the north America map and then you can use it just like a GPS unit. No data connection required. Seems to work good for me.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

[ERD50]

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteveNU Check out copilot, I have it loaded on my tablet. You download the north America map and then you can use it just like a GPS unit. No data connection required. Seems to work good for me. Sent from my Nexus 7 using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

Thanks, looks like the $10 version of co-pilot does what I want.

A little searching, and I also found a ref to this:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/d...t.osmand&hl=en

It's free, uses the open source maps (which seem to get good marks for getting fast updates/corrections), and says all 'main features' are available off-line, and it can store maps to the SD card, which it sounds like Co=Piolt does not support.

I wish there was a standard 'feature list' for comparing these apps, it's really tough to sort it all out. But since OSMAnd is free, I'll give it a try on DW's Samsung Exhibit II.

-ERD50