The Droid has googlemaps in 2 modes. One uses GPS plus cell tower. It does suck battery power.
The other appears to have little drain and gives you an area location based on nearest cell tower.
I am not sold on the cell phone - GPS feature based on receiver sensitivity, battery life and small screen size. It may be useful for the occasional user; however, when I need to say routes, I find it cumbersome.
BTW, I do have the upgraded battery for my Droid which does help with battery life.
I agree John. Based on my own testing and research, I think a multi-device solution is best (if possible). In my case, the cell phone works but only for a short while when using gps or for a longer while with not so accurate cell towers.
An inexpensive hand held gps (ex. Etrex Legend) on the other hand will work for hours especially when coupled with a good old map and knowledge on orienteering with the GPS.
For street/direction routing, I have yet to find a solution that beats a street specific gps but perhaps the phone gps can replace that (soon if not already).
For off road vehicle navigation, I'm still searching for the ideal balance of screen size, UI ease, and software functionality/features. I thought I found it in the software from Overland Navigator (vector based topo software) built with a tablet or mouse/trackpad interface but unfortunately they don't currently support any of the Apple OS platforms nor do they have any plans to.
Perhaps I'll have to buy a windows based tablet to use ON instead of my ipad.
But I (as usual) have digressed a bit... back to Phil's question. <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/lol.gif" alt="" /> <img src="/forums/images/graemlins/kewl.gif" alt="" />
