Looking for a phone that works *well* as sat-nav for car
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
I use my HTC Sensation XE (Android) as a Sat Nav whenever I need one, and it works very well, better than my wife's cheap Sat Nav (cannot remember the make). Just use the stock Google maps app which is free. Only charges are for downloading the maps as you go along, and this is where Google maps may not be good enough if you are driving in areas without mobile internet signal. Aside from that, which has never been a problem for me in the UK, and I only use sat nav when I am trying to find something or somewhere specific when I am reasonably close and don't know the area - getting between towns or cities over great distances is more a matter of following road signs, the only other issue aside from battery drain (so in car charger) is the phone gets very hot whilst being used like this for any sustained period.
“I believe that there is an equality to all humanity. We all suck.” Bill Hicks
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
I use Google Maps/Navigation on my Android phone and it does everything I need, though I have only used it in the UK. If you have a limited data allowance, you can download smallish portions of the map data for offline use - not particularly useful for long journeys though. I have an unlimited data allowance, so I don't have to worry about cost.
It's well known that if all the cat videos and porn disappeared from the internet there would be only one site left and it would be called whereareallthecatvideosandporn.com
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I guess that's a Gamsung Salaxy?
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I guess that's a Gamsung Salaxy?
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
Hi, Nokia gives their navigation app for free to their smartphones. I use it on the Lumia 700, but i gues the cheaper ones have it too. I like the Nokia navigation more than the google maps, it has: *offline maps (worldwide, downloadable) *very acurate maps *spoken instructions in multiple languages Cheers Hannes
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
peterchen wrote:
so I considered to get a tom-tom or something
Get away from TomTom. They were great 4 years ago, now they have a lot of compatibility troubles (the TomTomHome vs. MyTomTom story is just ridiculous). The devices are still OK, but speach recognition sucks many times if your voice happen not to fit in their frequence range ( Tomtom seems to be convinced that women are using GPS more than men) and managing the devices is PITA.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
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I guess that's a Gamsung Salaxy?
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
I use the Nokia drive app on my windows phone, its free and you can download maps from all over the world.
Every day, thousands of innocent plants are killed by vegetarians. Help end the violence EAT BACON
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
Any decent android phone will have google maps that are good enough for me. If you are looking for a proper GPS application on phone, try Sygic[^].
"Bastards encourage idiots to use Oracle Forms, Web Forms, Access and a number of other dinky web publishing tolls.", Mycroft Holmes[^]
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
I use the nokia app on my windows phone every day. Aside from one small annoyance with the "commute" feature it's the best sat-nav I'v used so far.
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Dalek Dave wrote:
Or if you wanna wat, GS4
The Galaxy S IV is already out.
Michael Martin Australia "I controlled my laughter and simple said "No,I am very busy,so I can't write any code for you". The moment they heard this all the smiling face turned into a sad looking face and one of them farted. So I had to leave the place as soon as possible." - Mr.Prakash One Fine Saturday. 24/04/2004
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
I quite like Navfree for Android. It takes up a lot of space because the maps are offline (which I think is good), but seems to work pretty well as a in-car Sat Nav. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.navfree.android.OSM.ALL[^]
Jon CodeWrite
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peterchen wrote:
so I considered to get a tom-tom or something
Get away from TomTom. They were great 4 years ago, now they have a lot of compatibility troubles (the TomTomHome vs. MyTomTom story is just ridiculous). The devices are still OK, but speach recognition sucks many times if your voice happen not to fit in their frequence range ( Tomtom seems to be convinced that women are using GPS more than men) and managing the devices is PITA.
~RaGE();
I think words like 'destiny' are a way of trying to find order where none exists. - Christian Graus Do not feed the troll ! - Common proverb
The new tray icon to nag + browser to update software is retarded; but the navigation/touchscreen capabilities of my year old GPS are just as good as the 4 year old one it replaced. Mine doesn't have voice command so I can't comment on that.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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So I thought, why not ask my local techie club, renowned for helpful, matter-of-factly answers. I'm looking for - spoken instructions - works world wide (Primarily Europe and The Americas; Far East + Asia not necessarily necessary...) - doesn't incur (significant) cost when it's not used for a while - works as phone occasionally Are they on par with dedicated devices? (position, maps, routing quality etc.)?
Background: I don't own a car, but usually rent one for vacation etc. Renting a sat nav with the car usually would pay for the thing, so I considered to get a tom-tom or something. However, since I also need a new phone, this would be an app that would make me use a smart phone instead of an old-fashioned brick.
I believe several of the answers didn't consider that you want to use the satnav worldwide. Google maps, while being really good, downloads map data from the internet. I still haven't heard of a cell phone subscription where that scenario wouldn't cost you a fortune when you're abroad. Yes I know you can preload maps, but only smaller portions. An online alternative to Google maps is Waze. It's crowd sourced and really good for commuters in areas with enough other wazers, which is most larger cities. Nokia bought Navteq a few years ago, so the claims that their maps are excellent are true. And they are really built to be used as a GPS, so Nokia would be a good choice. If you prefer an Android phone I would recommend an HTC One, they have the best screen with the most light, Samsung Galaxy is quite tough to use in sunlight. It comes with a crippled version of Route66 preinstalled which needs to be upgraded to be really useful. I would buy Navigon instead. If you'd prefer iPhone for using as a GPS I can recommend a good shrink.
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES! Abraham Lincoln