Mike101, as mentioned above certain SatNav applications (TomTom, CoPilot, OSMAnd et al) do not work by using data/mobile phone signal. You can turn the phone reception off as the applications use offline maps and the GPS receiver and as such require no mobile phone signal at all and also avoiding roaming charges.Mike101 wrote:Well i'm afraid thats not my experience or that of many others i know. I have no data signal in my back garden and cannot get a GPS fix on my phones.
Mike
In fact, the latest iteration of Google maps allows you to plan your route while you have signal and will cache this for you to use offline (and will talk you through the route). However, it will not "assist" you to get back on the route should you lose it. I tested it for laughs on a run from Austria to London on my tablet (with OSMAnd running in the background) and it worked amazingly well. To put that into perspective, my tablet does not have a sim card.
As others have said, the upside to using your phone with an offline routing app is that you do not require another device and therefore, avoiding a material investment. The downside is that it requires power, they are not always as robust as a dedicated GPS device and as sexysi says, I like the redundancy of having my phone available with power should an emergency occur.
For what it's worth, I have used TomTom over the last 7 years in mobile phone including a number of continental wanders on the bike. These days though, I use my Garmin hiking GPS for the bike and the phone in the car - works fine. (thumbs)