Navigation with Tablet

zigzagrv wrote:
I started using Co-Pilot on my Android tablet a couple years ago and find it is the best GPS unit I have ever had. I bought a mount for tablets and have it mounted inside on the wall just below the outside mirror. Very convenient. You can also preplan trips with Co-Pilot. I usually pre-plan each day of the trip and load it up each morning before hitting the road.

Can't tell, but almost a "shill" review, way to glowing of a report and leaving out a lot of pitfalls/shortfalls in a Tablet based GPS..

Tried CoPilot a few yrs ago, while it DOES "work" to a certain extent, we found that it is a very poor "replacement" for maps and highly doubt that it is "better" than a "dedicated" GPS.

Here is a list of "quirks", issues and shortfalls we found with CoPilot and a Android tablet.

#1 You get GPS OR "Tablet", not BOTH. In a nutshell, once you start CoPilot, NOTHING else on that Tablet can be used without causing Copilot to crash and burn. I suspect the same holds true with a Android phone.

#2 Sleep mode on the Tablet causes CoPilot to loose it's mind, waking up the Tablet causes CoPilot to have to START ALL OVER AGAIN. That means CoPilot acquire Satellites which can take 10-15 minutes, then you have to REENTER your Destination AGAIN..

#3 ANY interruption of CoPilot like sleep mode starts your trip over from scratch, but CoPilot gets highly confused when you are no longer AT THE BEGINNING of your trip route. Takes a long time for CoPilot to figure out where you are then often creates a NEW ROUTE from the original route based on the NEW LOCATION..

#4 Tablet may sip battery power for any other tasks, but start up Copilot and your battery life goes in the dumpster..

#5 Plugging in charge cable at any time while you have CoPilot running due to point #4 above causes CoPlilot to crash and restart the process.. This is a maddening thing to have happen while on the way..

#6 CoPilot using OFFLINE MAPS has NO REST STOPS or "points of Interest", At least with Paper maps they DO at least show REST STOPS.

#7 CoPilot (at least the version we had) had NO WAY what so ever to put in multiple destinations (points of Interest and your final destination in one trip).

#8 CoPilot did not have good routing, often wanting to take us on roads we KNOW we do not want to be on, either taking us through small towns with tons of 25mph zones and stop lights or going ALL Interstate..

We used CoPilot on a trip that we have done for nearly 20 yrs and from trial and error over those yrs we have figured out many roads we DO NOT WANT TO TAKE EVER AGAIN..

#9 The only way we were able to FORCE CoPilot to use the routes we desire was to create extremely short hops, pretty much using a paper map to find towns we KNOW are on our trip. The as we got to those towns we entered an new trip from that town to the next town..

Maddening to say the least..

#10 Offline maps are HUGE, you only want to download the SPECIFIC STATES you are planning to go through.. Otherwise it WILL take overnight or even 24 hrs to download the entire USA map.. Don't download the entire map if you have very limited storage space.

#11 "Accuracy" in "rural" areas was extremely poor, starting CoPilot at our home location was an adventure. CoPilot could never nail down our home location accurately, often showed our home starting location 1 to 10 miles away, never the same place either.. Church parking lots, farmers fields, grocery stores, gas stations but never where our home is..

Now that I have pointed out a few of the minus's, here is a couple of Plus's..

#1 CoPilot "free" was "free", didn't miss the silly voice instructions once the "trial" period was over, hated that stupid thing. Wouldn't buy CoPilot paid version just to get that annoying voice nanny.

#2 Nice to have "real time" destination time while traveling, found that once you get past all the hassles above, the times were often not far off.

#3 "Night mode" was nice, at least could see the "map" in the dark without turning interior lights on.

Over all feelings about Tablet based "GPS", not impressed.

If "CoPilot" is "BETTER" than a dedicated GPS unit then I can say that I will NEVER bother with any "GPS" ever again..

Folks, GPS is nothing more than a "tool", as such it truly does not "replace" paper maps AND your brain.

Our one trip with Tablet based GPS was frustrating and was not worth the effort we gave it..