GPS Why not a smart phone?

Well thanks to my Google phone as my dash GPS hosted by IGO had me going in circles in the middle of a city in traffic hour. Some times the simplest is the better.

I am traveling all over SE New Mexico oilfield roads some of which are so new, they are not on any map. I have google earth pro, and some of the roads may show up visually but are not in the google database. Some of thee roads have no data coverage so I end up using both phone and Garmin. When I get to a location, it is easy to save in the Garmin for future reference. AND the Garmin leaves bread crumbs and that route is there until I delete it. This is huge for me when I am on a road that is not on the map. The company gave me an Iphone. Imaps is the worst nav software ever and is not used by me. Not intuitive at all. The Garmin gives me speed limits which is handy since the company monitors my speed. For general use I still sometimes use both and often get different results for routes and ETA. The phone seems to be more accurate on ETA. The in-dash GPS in my personal truck and Garmin in work truck often lead me to businesses that are out of business or have moved. The phone does that less often. Even though I've been on a route a hundred times, I still program it into something because I like to know the ETA.

The problem I have had is when I go to do an update of the map, or make some other change, or I need to use a different function on the phone (It does so many things) and I'm out of coverage range (NO SIGNAL TIME) I can not return to the map. With the Garmin we used last night.. no problem since the map is "on board".

And where I am just now, "No signal" used to be very very common... (They fixed it for me in many areas just last week).

A restaurant where, on Good Friday Eve, I had NO SIGNAL.. Last night when I returned with my sweety (The Peach Cobler, A-la-mode, is better than.. Well you can guesws what it's better than). I had half scale on the meter and 4Glte. type improvement. I had a good signal (4g up to the point where I entered the RV) all the way from Town to parked. First time I've ever seen that on tisplay,,, ANd Wi-Fi in the motor home (Anywhere in the RV park).

I run Copilot on my phone and tablet. Download the maps you want when you have wifi. Saves you data charges. I have never had my phone "stall".
I can't figuer out why people are still buying expensive stand alone GPS. I am running on the same maps with more informaation and it is much cheaper and a bigger screen.
Bill

If you use an app like Here or Copilot that uses data stored on the phone it won't stall out either.

The problem is trying to fetch data remotely that's the problem.

If it were a stand-alone app it wouldnt stall either

aguablanco wrote:
I am curious as to why a stand alone GPS still seems to be so popular. What with smart phones and tablets being readily available I would think that the stand alone units would sort of fade away. I mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone for using whatever works for them. We all have our preferences.I am just wondering if I am missing some info that I could get with a GPS that I am not getting with my Droid phone.
RichH

I travel about 26 weeks out of the year for work and use my iPhone for a GPS every where I go. Even internationally and it works just fine. As mentioned it will drain the battery quicker. I just make sure it's plugged into the car for constant charging and never have an issue. Now if you have Verizon and you get a phone call wihile using it as a GPS the GPS function will stall out until the phone called ends. With AT&T they permit two simultaniuos signals so the GPS function continues to work when a phone call comes in.

- As mentioned earlier, there are several resident GPS programs for Smartphones that do not rely on cellular data, and these days some of these screens are stupid large

- Even when in the phone, these programs prompt you with turns, etc. in the background. Text messages, and other pop-ups slide down and only populate that very top of the screen with no impact on the GPS screen. These disappear about 3 seconds later

- I have no problems calling up my GPS screen in the middle of a phone call.

- On my dash GPS, it is up 100% of the time except for the 2 seconds it's responding to my voice command on what to dial

-If you don't trust GPS, you don't trust all of them. They all run essentially the same map data: In vehicle dash, standalone, or smartphone. They all have sent me east when I should be going west at times for no reason

When on long distance trips and are crossing 1 or more states, I hate GPS. I love my paper maps, will study routes and then make a sketch of the freeways & highways to be on and what exits to take. Sometimes use the internet before leaving for the leg of the trip and look up a video of the proposed road to see what it's like, if there might be construction or if there are sections of rough or twisting turns, etc. Then I stick the sketch on the dash or steering wheel and I am done.

DW loves her google maps and GPS (Tomtom for the truck). Google has put me on a few too many bad roads. I can't see the GPS screen very well as there isn't a good place to mount it and is too small, plus I were hearing aids and often can't hear the instructions due to road noise. DW gets p*ssed when I say I want nothing to do with either google maps or GPS, but then she can get lost on the way back home from work without her GPS.

DW has a factory touchscreen GPS in her Subaru and I do not like it at all. Would never use a phone GPS either. If I am going to be relying on one while pulling the trailer around, I want it running realtime 100 percent of the time and not cutting out for phone calls, emails or text messages and do not want to have to rely on cell towers. We have Verizon 4G and DW's phone and laptop but there are areas where Verizon is not available

When we're visiting an unfamiliar small town or large city, that's when I like GPS but even then it can make too many mistakes. Last year in Reno instead of telling us to make a right turn it said "make a left turn then make a U-turn". It was a good thing we didn't have the trailer behind us. I'm kinda thinking about getting a Garmin 760 but am on the fence.

On where to mount a GPS, Ram Mounts and Parker Mount have a bunch of various pieces so you can make up an articulating mount and I'm planning to get a few of them and a universal mount (so we can upgrade to a larger GPS if we decide to later on). With their components, I can make the GPS hang over and down in front of the dash where the radio is. Will cut a piece of 1/8" steel to sit in the tray on top of the dash to attach the round mounting plate to (1st pic).

I gave up on the windshield mounts several years ago and went with the beanbag mount. Works very well, is very portable, easily hideable, and doesn't require drilling a hole in my dash.