Mapping and GPS Recommendations Needed
We are considering purchasing a GPS unit when we restart taking long trips. I love the old state Gazetteer map books, but I also like being able to see where the next gas station is located, as well ...
Forum Discussion
lryrob9301 wrote:
An alternative to dedicated GPS units, at half the price, is an android tablet with built in GPS sensor running the CO-PILOT RV app. CO-PILOT does not need cell service since the map software is loaded on the tablet. CO-PILOT can be configured for the size and weight of the RV and has campgrounds, rest areas, and other attractions in it's database. I've been using it for over 7 years and never had a problem with being routed over weight limited roads or low overpasses.
We tried the Co-Pilot on the tablet method..
Failed miserably.
Tablets vary greatly between the OS version, processor, on board usable memory so results often can be rather unpredictable to say the least.
Not ALL tablets include GPS radios either.
Played the game of downloading Copilot, then the maps of the states of interest which took hrs (couldn't imaging how long it would take to download all 50 states)..
Then played the game of "wack-a-mole" with Android updates which took out the CoPilot which required a newer version of CoPliot which required reloading the maps..
Also noticed that when using CoPilot, the Tablet just ate right through the battery and the second the charger was plugged in, Copilot would freeze and then reboot the Tablet..
Betting your life on a buggy OS like Android and a highly buggy "app" is pretty risky.
If you needed the Tablet for anything else, you had to shut down Copilot, then once done with the other App you had to restart Copilot from the beginning and setup the trip again and again..
After several trips of that, my DW in the seat beside me quietly put the Tablet CoPilot to sleep for ever and started using the paper maps again..
GPS is only a "tool", it can and will make mistakes, best to not 100% depend on it and use backup paper and your eyes and mind on the road signs..
A far better idea we found was to scan in our Paper Atlas as JPGs and DW can view the JPGs on her Tablet. Allows her to to zoom in closely like a magnifying glass or zoom out depending on level of detail she wants to look at. We still keep the paper Atlas also..
