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I have a Garmin as a back-up, but use my Samsung phone usually. I had a Tom Tom, but they had problems find GPS satellites after being shut off for a few days.
I used to be all about the in-dash nav because it looks so nice but as noted above your (android) phone is now your friend and it costs a whole lot less. As in you're already paying for it.
I used to be all about the in-dash nav because it looks so nice
That's about it. It looks nice. The thing with in dash is you're stuck with it. This technology is changing so fast that it becomes more difficult to upgrade in dash when you can upgrade your phone (or buy a new garmin) within a year.
I am torn myself, as a user, stand-alone vs smartphone.
I can tell you this--"how do stand-alones even survive," 2 reasons (a) offline access and (b) battery life.
To wit: smartphone GPS units, for whatever reason, absolutely SUCK the battery down fast. Yes they can run off the cigarette lighter, but once mounted (if you get a mount kit), I find it's hard to operate a smartphone GPS, it's not really tailored for that size of buttons-wise, whereas it's far easier I find to operate a stand-alone that way. Also, stand-alones work even if you have no cell phone service in your area, or regardless of if your service is or isn't having an outage, or you forgot to pay the bill & such.
On top of that, texting or calling someone interferes with the operation of a smartphone GPS.
Smartphones are always with you, have a much better "bird's eye" view (important, it helps you see where you are in a "contextual" sort of way) and the maps are more up-to-date, but they need to make it to where the maps are "preloaded," ALL of it (I don't care if it consumes 12G of space on the microSD, do it) & make the on-screen buttons HUGE to where you can tap whatever easily with the device mounted on a suction cup mount.
Location: God's Gift to Mankind for flying anything
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cdelena
The traffic feeds and suggestions are not really effective in many areas.
Traffic warnings, only work when they are being broadcasted. If no provision for traffic broadcasting in a specific area then *No traffic warnings*.
From my experience, the traffic option is really a waste.
What I do like, is the blue tooth capability.
My phone is thus hands free, only have to tap the screen once.
If your phone has voice commands available, I do not even have to *dial*
Life time maps is worth it. Four updates a year on ours.
We have a Garmin, but that is a matter of personal preference.
I also have a Garmin in my plane, so that about determined what I wanted in my car.
(Car does not have all the built in stuff ...)
I figured out to have the same updates on the car one, update the one in my plane ...
Which particular model is up to you.
You have to get a hands on demo and then decide.
How easy is it to enter an address ?
Can you easily tap the screen ? Many have a *fatfinger* tap problem !!
Ours has a slew of extras, we never use !
I also like our model because I have the *dongle* for Engine monitoring.
Kind of *neat thing to have* ... (Who does not like toys ?)
I am torn myself, as a user, stand-alone vs smartphone.
I can tell you this--"how do stand-alones even survive," 2 reasons (a) offline access and (b) battery life.
To wit: smartphone GPS units, for whatever reason, absolutely SUCK the battery down fast. Yes they can run off the cigarette lighter, but once mounted (if you get a mount kit), I find it's hard to operate a smartphone GPS, it's not really tailored for that size of buttons-wise, whereas it's far easier I find to operate a stand-alone that way. Also, stand-alones work even if you have no cell phone service in your area, or regardless of if your service is or isn't having an outage, or you forgot to pay the bill & such.
On top of that, texting or calling someone interferes with the operation of a smartphone GPS.
Smartphones are always with you, have a much better "bird's eye" view (important, it helps you see where you are in a "contextual" sort of way) and the maps are more up-to-date, but they need to make it to where the maps are "preloaded," ALL of it (I don't care if it consumes 12G of space on the microSD, do it) & make the on-screen buttons HUGE to where you can tap whatever easily with the device mounted on a suction cup mount.
LRH
I rarely operate my phone, I just tell it what I want. Usually, I tap only one button. It is easy to see, but then my smart phone screen is bigger than most of all portable navigation systems. It is a BA phone.
They do really suck the nbatteries dry. I get maybe 1 hour out of the phone with Nav running, up to ten hours without it. The garmin will also suck down battery life. You really need to keep it plugged in for long use.
The phone nav also works if you are outside of cell tower service. It does not use cell towers, it uses GPS satellites. It will use cell towers and internet hot spots to get more precise, but still works without cell service I think. I know I have been places (Oaklahoma) where I could not make a call but it was still navigating.
I have no problem using the phone and hte navigation at the same time. I just open a new window to call, or look up something on the internet or whatever (not while moving) If a turn comes up the voice directions talk over the phone call. So you do get your call interrupted with "turn left in one half mile" and the other person can hear that, but they can also hear the garmin talking if you are on the phone separately. When I am done with the call or text or whatever, I just go back to the navigation window. It is not interrupted, it continues operating normally.
Maybe older smart phones could only do one thing at a time. The new ones, you can navigate, talk on the phone, text, look at E-mail or calender, and surf the internet all at the same time. The computer in the phone is more powerful than most of the desk tops and lap tops we have in our family. (It is a quad core something or other). They have come a long long way. It does not seem like the GPS devices have changed much at all int eh past 10 years. They got thinner.
I need to buy a new GPS. I prefer one that has traffic reports. Anyone have recommendations?
Thanks in advance
If you have an iPhone/smartphone, get the Waze app. The traffic service used by the old-school GPS units cover only major highways/expressways and a few major arterial surface streets. By contrast, Wazes references user data -- a combination of real-time data from current drivers and historic traffic data collected from Waze users stored in its servers -- thus it has far more complete traffic data than the service used by the likes of Garmin and TomTom.
This gives Waze a major advantage for someone in a gridlocked area; you indicate you're from Long Island which I presume is just as bad or worse than the Chicago area traffic-wise. My experience with the old-school GPS traffic service is that whenever you try to use the "Avoid Traffic" feature, it re-routes you onto clogged arterial surface streets where the traffic is often just as bad or worse as the traffic it's trying to route you around. Since Waze has real-time data and historic traffic trends on all streets traversed by Waze users and not just the expressways and a few major surface streets, its routing algorithm is far less likely to route you into even crappier traffic.
People like me, who are too cheap to pay for smartphone data plans, buy them.
that's why i have my garmin. my phone is dumber than a door nail.
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