Smartphone GPS woes

[Pnw.hiker]

I'm considering getting a smartphone with GPS to use with pre-loaded maps while hiking. Never used a smart phone before-- having trouble understanding these things.

For example, the Nokia Lumia 521 is supposed to have GPS and Glonass, but when I asked someone at the Microsoft retail store about it, they insisted that the GPS doesn't work outside of cell range. What the heck? Nokia advertises "Offline maps" in the specifications.

I'm aware there is GPS like emulation that uses cell towers, and that some phones with real GPS use cell towers to speed things up and sometimes have trouble outside of range. But the only reason I'm considering getting one of these things is for GPS.

Has anyone here successfully used a Nokia Lumia 521 for GPS, with preloaded maps, outside of cell range?

What GPS enabled smartphones have good GPS function outside of cell range with preloaded maps?

What apps have people used for this application? In particular for Windows phones or other cheap smartphones?

[Waffle Stomper]

I have a Samsung III with gps. I don't use it because I keep it turned off. It is a battery hog and prefer to preserve the battery which drains faster outside of cell range. I believe it is best to have a separate device. I would not want to count on my phone. Apple users may have a different experience.

[Eric Peterson]

I have a Samsung Galaxy IIIs mini and the GPS antenna is awful, barely tracks anything in Forest Park.

Basically my phones GPS just doesn't work well under trees. This is my second smartphone that just
doesn't work well out in the field for tracking using the GPS. Phones GPS antennas are made for open
city/highway travel.

[kepPNW]

I also have a Samsung GS3. The guy at the Microsoft store was nuts. Their ability to track you is lost when you're outside cell range, but I'm pretty sure most phones today (Apple and Android, for sure) will definitely still use the GPS (not just tower triangulation) in that case.

That said, there's a lot to be desired in GPS that phones just don't provide. They seem to be a lot less capable of acquiring and holding onto a satellite signal than dedicated units. They also lack the barometric damping on elevation so if you care about resulting statistics from a track you'll see a hugely exaggerated range there.

The quality of the track seems to vary highly from device to device. One time I saved tracks on my GS3, my Garmin Oregon 450, and a friend's Garmin 62CSX. Each unit "failed" in different ways, but all three tracks were very close. Only way to say for sure which track was the phone, just by looking at them, was in the elevation profile.

And as WS said, you do have to be more careful with batteries. Put the phone in "Airplane Mode" when on the trail, and this concern just about disappears, though! I keep mine running, because there are all sorts of useful apps for on the trail. (But I also charge it right up to the trailhead, and plug it back in when I get back to the jeep!)

If you're using the GPS/phone for reference, it's not that bad of a battery draw. If you're asking it to store a track for you, recording points at regular intervals and keeping constant lock on the satellites, the batteries go far quicker. I do the former, and record my tracks with a Garmin unit. The tradeoff is, it can seriously take several minutes to find satellites in moderate forest cover.

Not familiar with the Windows app market, but my impression is that's because there really isn't much there? I think my favorite app right now is Avenza's PDF-Maps, because it can use any GeoPDF you download from the USGS, USFS, or countless other sources. Guthook has an interesting array of trail guides for specific areas (PCT-type thru hikes mostly, now). My favorite tracking app is ViewRanger, despite the relative difficulty in making sure you have the correct maps preloaded. One other fun app that can use your phone GPS is PeakFinder.

I'm sure others will have more suggestions, too, on apps. But hopefully the above offers some idea on a few of the tradeoffs with phone GPS.

[jdemott]

I use Gaia GPS on an iPhone--also available for Android. You can definitely download and save maps for off-line use, and the GPS function on the iPhone will work when out of cell phone range. Others have already mentioned some of the trade-offs in choosing between smart phone versus dedicated GPS unit. With the smartphone, you have to be careful about managing battery life and the antenna is not as good as the best dedicated GPS units. But, I already have the smartphone, it has a wonderful, very readable display, the GPS app was cheap, the maps are free (with a choice of several topo map sets), and the accuracy is good enough for my purposes. With a smart phone, you aren't limited to a single location-based app--you can switch to a different app, like Google Maps, for driving or urban walking directions.

[BrianEdwards]

The newer iPhones do very well with GPS when out of cell range, as they also have Glonass. Yes it's a battery hog, but external batteries are better and cheaper then they used to be. I bought an intel one for $30 that has the 6x the MaH of the iPhones battery, and after two days of hiking with the GPS on my phone was still at 100% battery. The newer the iphone, the better.

[Pnw.hiker]

Thanks for all the replies.

I bought a cheap tablet a while back and the salesperson insisted it had GPS. It didn't. After much research I found it had some type of emulation that used wifi so I returned it. Also it was an android, and just about everything it did required google inserting another tendril into your privacy -- creepy.

Now I have an old cellphone dying, and finding a sales person who can answer GPS questions accurately seems to be more difficult than pulling teeth.

[kepPNW]

Now I have an old cellphone dying, and finding a sales person who can answer GPS questions accurately seems to be more difficult than pulling teeth.

Spend some time with online user reviews once you've narrowed down a model or two that's most interesting. (Realizing none of them are up to dedicated GPS standards, and are good for all sorts of other users as well!)

[adamschneider]

Android devices are capable of using GPS when in airplane mode... however, many of them (including my phone) are incapable of getting an initial "fix" when in airplane mode! So you have to get the fix while in normal mode, then turn on airplane mode and everything should be OK from that point on, assuming your navigation app leaves the GPS running.

Apparently it's either a bug or a poor decision in the firmware of the phones; they use "assisted GPS" — which means getting a location hint from nearby wireless networks — to get a fix more quickly, but some idiot programmer forgot to allow them to get an "unassisted" fix when no networks are available. (http://backcountrynavigator.com/using-a ... lane-mode/)


This came up a lot for me last week while traipsing around the Sierra Nevada. Fortunately, I found that I don't necessarily have to have cell service to get a fix... it seems that I just have to be near SOME tower, even if it's not one belonging to my provider.

[Lumpy]

For those of us with Android phones that won't get a GPS lock without being taken out of Airplane Mode, you need this free application:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... gpsairtime

It does a little trick to tell the system you have the cell connection hardware on, and then the GPS section seems to work fine after that for a while. It works when it needs to so you can get a GPS fix. I've been using it for a few months now, and it works as advertised. It is "sponsored" I guess you would say by the Backcountry Navigator guy, but it works independently. Give it a try if your device says it cannot find GPS without a cell signal.