Talkback: Just In - Magellan Explorist 310 GPS

"a no-brainer to chuck it in your pack given that it doesn't weigh that much more than many smartphones"

But then if you have a smartphone in anyway then you probably have GPS if you need it and you can 'phone people too... (not that I have a smartphone, mind, but I appear to be in a minority these days).

Pete.

Some remarks about smartphones and GPS. When a smartphone usues it's built in GPS it use verty much energy. Battery life is propably 30% to 50% less.

A separate outdoor GPS makes more sense than a smartphone Do it All  if battery life is important.

The 500Mb internal memory is from the stone age. And not able to use uSD cards is really bad. It's so easy to have your country installed on your GPS...

The recently new series Garmin Eterx 20 and 30 are much better tha this GPS. Or ofcourse you must hate Garmin and you cannot afford the big brother then you can buy this one....

Battery life between smartphones and dedicated GPS receivers is likely to be determined by the size of the battery, since both devices are likely to be using similar technologies for the GPS receiver (unless the phone is using its RF stage and CPU/DSP to perform GPS function, rather than a dedicated GPS chipset).

You may be able to turn off other functions in a smartphone (i.e. 'flight safe mode'), and use it essentially as a GPS receiver.  Check the smartphone instructions...

i think i would prefer to have a fully functioning smartphone with lots of battery left and a separate gps for which batteries are cheap, easy to obtain and to change.

but that depends what you want a gps for i guess. and a smartphone for.

If batteries are an issue, can always take a battery charger - power monkey sort of thing.

Of course the phone could get broken, so either need some sort of case or a dedicated GPS.  Until recently I did carry a Magellan 310 (previous version, very low tech) as a spare in case my smartphone died.

but that depends what you want a gps for i guess. and a smartphone for.

It does indeed.

What I was picking up on was a suggestion that it's a no-brainer to chuck it in your pack, which implied to me "just in case" use.  If you're navigating by GPS anyway then of course you'll have one with you and you'd not need to be thinking whether or not to put one in because of weight or bulk.

It makes more sense to take analogue maps with you in case technology leaves you astray

Again the case that if you've just popped in GPS or 'phone in on the grounds it's so near no fuss it's daft not to, rather than you'll be actively using it, then you're likley to have paper maps to start with.

Pete.

You get a voucher with this to get full GB mapping for £50 which makes this GPS very cheap. Granted you can only store 1/4 of the UK at a time, due to the 500 MB memory, but ive not had a problem - can always swap maps on computer later.

Compared to Garmin Etrex this is about £150 cheaper if you include maps.