Whenever I am travelling, my smartphone is given a lot of work to do. My current smartphone is a Sony Xperia Z and before buying the Xperia Z I have owned an HTC Touch Pro. However I only occasionally use the phone for making and receiving phone calls and messages while on my journeys. Instead my phone is made to serve its function as a GPS receiver. The thing is that I am one who likes to discover new places and without some sort of GPS receiver I would get lost in no time.
The GPS software I am currently using is Sygic GPS Navigation while on my HTC Touch Pro I used to find my way around with an iGO Amigo. In the not so distant past I have also used my iPad as a navigation device. The navigation software I am running on my tablet is NAVIGON. While Sygic, iGO and NAVIIGON are not the cheapest navigation software around they are without a doubt three of the best GPS applications available on the market.
Given the importance of a GPS receiver for my travels, I have been thinking about buying a dedicated GPS unit for some time and having my smartphone as a backup GPS. Having said this, I never came about to buying a dedicated handheld GPS unit and there are several reasons for this.
First of all is the fact that lower entry GPS units, like the Garmin eTrek 10, provide very limited functionality. The eTrek 10 in particular does not even allow one to download maps onto the unit. While it is possible to download waypoints on the device, I cannot see how useful would that be in finding my way around a city.
Another reason is that while high end portable GPS receivers, like the Garmin Montana 650t, provide a significant range of features, such devices are perhaps too expensive for the average man in the street. As a matter of fact, the Garmin Montana 650t costs $545 in the US and GBP 437 in the UK at the time of writing.
Apart from the price, one can also find a significant number of negative user reviews for the Montana 650t and other high end GPS units on the Amazon marketplace. Some users reported that the software on the 650t is rather “primitive”. Others reported that the battery lifetime is rather poor even though, according to Garmin, it should serve for 16 hours when fully charged. Other users wrote that Garmin’s support is not very helpful and if a faulty unit is returned to the manufacturer, Garmin will only replace it with a refurbished one.
Instead of buying a dedicated handheld GPS unit I prefer to keep using my Sony Xperia Z as a GPS receiver. Using a smartphone instead of a dedicated GPS unit has several advantages.
First of all is the fact that using a smartphone allows one to select from a variety of GPS applications which are usually available for trial download. Thus one is able to test a series of navigation applications before deciding which application to purchase. In the case of a handheld GPS unit one is stuck with the software provided by the manufacturer of the unit without the possibility of testing the unit before paying for it.
Secondly is the fact that when compared to the software that is installed on most handheld GPS units, most smartphone GPS applications are continuously being updated. The developers of smartphone navigation software know that they have to keep the software updated in order to compete with the many other navigation applications available on the market. On the other hand a manufacturer like Garmin knows that given that there aren’t many handheld GPS units available on the market, it will still keep selling such units even if the software is not updated in a couple of years.
While I am using a Sony Xperia Z, which I bought for € 650 some 18 months ago, any cheap Android or Windows smartphone can be used as a GPS receiver. Carrying two smartphones while travelling makes sense as in this way one would have a backup GPS unit in case one of them gets faulty, lost or stolen. While one is free not install a SIM card in the spare smartphone, having a second SIM card would be useful if wants to have a backup phone as well.
Given that a GPS receiver consumes a lot of battery power, having a backup smartphone is also useful should one of the smartphone batteries get drained. This way one does not need to go around carrying a portable battery charger in case the smartphone’s battery gets drained. Apart from being useful as a GPS receiver, a second smartphone might just as well serve as an MP3 player without the fear of draining the battery of the primary smartphone flat.
On the negative side is the fact that the GPS receiver on smartphones is usually not very powerful. This might not be an issue in the open air but in cities and in areas with dense vegetation the smartphone may take a few minutes to find the correct position. For this reason I always carry my Qstarz BT-Q818XT Bluetooth GPs receiver with me, but more about this will be covered in a future article.