The end of Personal Navigation Devices (PND's) is nigh?
Discussion
JimmyTheHand said:
nickfrog said:
As an old git myself, I am sorry but when one cheap device can do ALL of this and quite possibly better than 1 and 2 and be perfectly usable for 3 and 4 99% of the time, why on earth would you carry all that equipment and their batteries, chargers, cables etc etc ?
Personally I prefer the SatNav to the smart phone option - I can leave the SatNav setup and ready to put on dash, it normally stays in car - where as if I used my smart phone I would fiddle around with cradle and micro-usb connectors. The screen on mine isn't as big as my SatNav and I not sure I want a much bigger smart phone - though in an emergency it would do.cptsideways said:
Hence me posting the "phone dock" system I use, the cradle stays in the cars, I have a few of them so one for each car. Just click & go the nav is plenty big enough.
Does it provide power to the phone - most phone cradles don't seem to, so I have to get phone out of jacket and put in doc, then plug in chargerJimmyTheHand said:
Does it provide power to the phone - most phone cradles don't seem to, so I have to get phone out of jacket and put in doc, then plug in charger
I have a vent clip-on thingy and the phone is powered from the cigarette lighter via USB cable.To be honest I find installing / removing a TomTom far more of a PITA than my mobile.
JimmyTheHand said:
cptsideways said:
Hence me posting the "phone dock" system I use, the cradle stays in the cars, I have a few of them so one for each car. Just click & go the nav is plenty big enough.
Does it provide power to the phone - most phone cradles don't seem to, so I have to get phone out of jacket and put in doc, then plug in chargerThis phone a Motorola Atrix was an absolutely brilliant idea, but somehow it missed the mainstream media & fell by the wayside.
I notice the new MG-3 has an iphone dock built in, a similar concept
Garybee said:
I find mobile phones to be very slow to get a satellite lock. Would like to use android phone for navigation but will be sticking with standalone sat nav for this reason.
Most newer phones have far better GPS chipsets than the average nav unit especially those a few years old. nickfrog said:
nickwilcock said:
Stuff which could have been written about me including the 6310i.
As an old git myself, ....I promise you, it's not just for the yoofs.
The 6310 went because work said we can't go on finding car mounts for these which was hollyhocks they just wanted to save themselves the installation cost and use bluetooth.
So battery life went to blazes. ... as did reliability. Let's face it anything is less reliable than a 6310i.
Then I got a smart phone and realised what I had been missing.
Signed
Another old git.
SidJames said:
I got my first sat nav device as a HP IPAQ xxxx which was effectively a windows device onto which I downloaded one of the very first versions of TomTom. This must have been around 2001.
Mitac Mio and TomTom 5 for me! Quite a step up from a Garmin GPS12 and Navroute or whatever the software was called: it didn't even route you. All it really did was show where you were - a live 'you are here' map, if you will.My Android works just as well, if not better than my £100 2009 TomTom.
However, the smartphone battery dies after a couple of hours, even if being simultaneously charged, so it's only useful once in the vicinity of the destination.
My TomTom's battery on the other hand lasts about 2 minutes outside of the car, although works whilst being charged.
Neither will be replaced once they finally go to the electronics graveyard, as most new cars have satnav built in, sometimes for free if a previous owner has paid for the upgrdae
However, the smartphone battery dies after a couple of hours, even if being simultaneously charged, so it's only useful once in the vicinity of the destination.
My TomTom's battery on the other hand lasts about 2 minutes outside of the car, although works whilst being charged.
Neither will be replaced once they finally go to the electronics graveyard, as most new cars have satnav built in, sometimes for free if a previous owner has paid for the upgrdae
I seriously wouldn't bother shelling out for a standalone sat nav system if you have a smart phone. I've got an iPhone 5, my dad's got an older Samsung Galaxy, S3 mini maybe. We both run Waze and it is sweet as a nut. Get yourself a cradle for the phone you have and a charging cable that can plug into your cigarette lighter and you're sorted.
As a side note, I've seen a few comments saying Google maps is better than Waze. I disagree. It's recently just been bought by Facebook meaning it now has revenue of billions of £ behind it. It's already pretty awesome at hazard alerts (car stopped on shoulder, crash ahead etc) and is getting better and better at re-routing to avoid traffic. It's saved me hours and hours since I started using it!
As a side note, I've seen a few comments saying Google maps is better than Waze. I disagree. It's recently just been bought by Facebook meaning it now has revenue of billions of £ behind it. It's already pretty awesome at hazard alerts (car stopped on shoulder, crash ahead etc) and is getting better and better at re-routing to avoid traffic. It's saved me hours and hours since I started using it!
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