Gents, our recent holiday to Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks well proved the worth of a GPS unit mounted somewhere in the heads up area of the dash or windshield. This was accomplished with a Garmin 2555LMT unit. It really saved our bacon in Denver. On the way we thought we might stop in Denver and check out the downtown area or whatever may catch our attention. This was a huge mistake. I-70 West into Denver was a parking lot. To be honest, it was a parking lot on the other side of the intermediate strip going East as well! Usually we would have just taken the I-470 loop around Denver and hit the Fort Collins area and shot North on I-25 to Cheyenne. We eventually did so but had gotten really turned around in the Eastern Denver suburbia if not for the Garmin unit we wold have wasted a lot of petrol getting back on course.
So with that adventure out of the way I wanted some opinions about what sort of unit to use going forward. The 2555 is fine but there is another consideration. My first generation Kindle Fire tablet is getting shall we say, a bit long in the tooth. No cameras, maudlin storage, slow as molasses, no GPS receiver. It is just getting old and the battery is starting to lose steam as well. So a new 7 inch tablet will probably be purchased this year. I find the 7 inch models to be ideal for our uses. And I have seen one or two mounted in vehicles and they really do not take up the space you would think. With that in mind I also know nearly all the major brands come with a GPS receiver built into them now. And the extra screen size when used as a GPS receiver is a big help to my eyes. So you see where I am headed here.
First lets speak to things I don't want to do. Use a smartphone. First up I don't have one. Second, the typical four or five inch screen is no different than using the 2555 now. Third, when we do get smartphones, which will be relatively soon I am not going to burn data using the typical A-GPS feature found on most of them. What I would really like to do is find a full featured offline GPS map/system to load on the 7" tablet. The tablet will likely be one of Galaxy Tab models since they have a micro SD card slot that would allow me to store the mapping programme there and use it when on the road. A Google search turned up so many articles about this I was quickly overwhelmed. Most articles were not super clear about whether the apps they were using were truly offline capable with turn by turn features or whether those functions were only available with data assistance. They also tended to focus on free apps and to be honest, I am willing to pay for a real GPS programme with the features needed. This way I have a fully functional navigation system and tablet for out of car use. One less device to pack along. Any suggestions?
Cheers, Todd
So with that adventure out of the way I wanted some opinions about what sort of unit to use going forward. The 2555 is fine but there is another consideration. My first generation Kindle Fire tablet is getting shall we say, a bit long in the tooth. No cameras, maudlin storage, slow as molasses, no GPS receiver. It is just getting old and the battery is starting to lose steam as well. So a new 7 inch tablet will probably be purchased this year. I find the 7 inch models to be ideal for our uses. And I have seen one or two mounted in vehicles and they really do not take up the space you would think. With that in mind I also know nearly all the major brands come with a GPS receiver built into them now. And the extra screen size when used as a GPS receiver is a big help to my eyes. So you see where I am headed here.
First lets speak to things I don't want to do. Use a smartphone. First up I don't have one. Second, the typical four or five inch screen is no different than using the 2555 now. Third, when we do get smartphones, which will be relatively soon I am not going to burn data using the typical A-GPS feature found on most of them. What I would really like to do is find a full featured offline GPS map/system to load on the 7" tablet. The tablet will likely be one of Galaxy Tab models since they have a micro SD card slot that would allow me to store the mapping programme there and use it when on the road. A Google search turned up so many articles about this I was quickly overwhelmed. Most articles were not super clear about whether the apps they were using were truly offline capable with turn by turn features or whether those functions were only available with data assistance. They also tended to focus on free apps and to be honest, I am willing to pay for a real GPS programme with the features needed. This way I have a fully functional navigation system and tablet for out of car use. One less device to pack along. Any suggestions?
Cheers, Todd
