On 5 August 2015 at 14:33, Chris Green cl@isbd.net wrote:
On Tue, Aug 04, 2015 at 05:20:28PM +0100, Paul Tansom wrote:
Cheap Android smartphones are often cheaper than satNavs. My Motorola Moto E which is sort of middle of the road is only around £100. There are others out there much cheaper.
I found Here! at least as good as the native Garmin offerings, better in some ways. I didn't use Google Maps at all.
We don't have a signal at home (out in the sticks in Suffolk) but I still find having a 'phone is handy at times.
** end quote [Chris Green]
If you're just using it for offline maps which update over wifi at home why not use a small screen tablet? There are car mounting brackets for them, although I'm not entirely sure whether they would fit on the dash. Storage wise I think they would stand up better than a phone since most I've seen only have about 4G (e.g. the Huawei Y550 that my son has which is around £40 plus £20 topup on EE, there used to be a similarly spec'd Sony for a bit more there too), whereas tablets generally have around 16G (e.g. the Lenovo A7-50 which was around £60 in Argos recently or £70 on Amazon, it looks like there's a new version with less memory now; I suspect the S8-50 I've just got for around £100 would be too large at 8" instead of 7", although the screen is a better resolution - go to John Lewis for that price as Currys, etc. want another £50 for it! You also get 2 years warranty for free).
Yes, I quite agree, as a 'new satNav' a cheap tablet makes a lot of sense, I did consider it for my application but didn't have too much time to spare so went the 'use existing phone' route.
-- Chris Green
I'll have to look at those - I'd quite like the 8" for a truck. Which offline maps would you recommend for it? Just had a friend round whose an ADI and he was saying that satnav use is going to be part of the test in future. He also said that google maps were c*** - but happy with his satnav. Thing is a tablet with offline maps is a better tool... just occasionally the satnav loses signal.
james