Just a bit of an update. Having done a reasonable amount of research into the various apps available, I’ve decided to stick with Garmin for my main navigation devices,
I’ve bought a Montana 700i for trail and dual sport use, and a Garmin XT for road use.
Here’s the reasons;
Firstly, devices. I bought a ulefone armor 7E rugged phone to use pretty much solely as a nav device. It was £200, and it’s certainly a solid piece of kit, tactical even
. But it’s got buttons all over which means it has to be carefully positioned in a cradle, and it’s easy to press a button when picking it up and handling it. Also reports say that most of the phones can overheat in sunlight and the screen doesn’t work well in rain, can’t attest to that as yet. It has wireless charging which gets around the usb cable issue, but the wireless charging mounts (rugged enough for off road use) are expensive. So in my opinion the devices aren’t as good as a dedicated gps device.
Second, for road navigation, city navigator and Garmin gives a good experience, with search along route, junction view, auto zooms, and the XT now does facilitate getting routes and tracks into the device without a pc, and even has reasonable route planning on the device, as good as a phone at any rate. OSM maps can be added (though see my note in the XT section about routing no longer working, I hope this is a bug)
For tracks and trails, you can’t beat the the profile feature of the Montana’s which allows you to switch between OS maps and a trail riding profile and a road riding profile with City Navigator. The new Montana screen is good, it works in the rain, it’s milspec tough, the mount is good, it doesn’t overheat, it can be used with gloves on, and also OSM maps can be loaded. Again, tracks and routes can be loaded without a computer. Also it does have the Garmin Inreach satellite messenger built in, which means you can send messages and get emergency assistance with no phone signal.
Third, Basecamp. It’s a good route planning tool, and copes with road routes, tracks, track splitting and joining, it has a good library function, you can install maps on the computer (again see my note in the XT section, you can’t with the latest firmware on XT)
I couldn’t find one single android app that does all I want, and the full function ones like Locus are super complex and also buggy, with a bit community of hard core software developer types and GPS experts whose ability is far beyond mine. All of the ones with any off tarmac capability are mostly hiking and mountain bike apps that have been hijacked by trail riders
There’s the issue with OS maps for UK trail riding, currently ViewRanger is ok but is really only any good for following a trail and it’s not clear whether the new owners will support dual sport use. When leaving the trail, you need to switch to another app to get home or to your digs. On the Montana I have a trail bike road profile which takes the shortest distance, avoids major roads and motorways and doesn’t avoid unpaved roads and it takes 3 seconds to switch to this,
Of the android apps, Locus seems the most powerful and configurable, there’s a big update coming soon too. It probably does all of the above, and I’m going to press on with it to use as a back up device. It doesn’t really have a road navigation mode, but there may be a road dashboard view that some gps geek has made that’s useable. Drive mode dashboard may also be good, but there’s also a big update on that coming soon so I’m not looking at it till then, it’s also got a huge gps and developer geek community making things for it, and also it is made for motorcycle and dual sport (included in some AJP’s, I think)
In fact, I will use the android as a back up since it’s handy to say, use Google maps to find something, but basically as a long time Garmin, Basecamp and Apple user I find the world of Android a bit weird.