Anyone use their EVO as their sole GPS?

[PM-Performance]

Well my Garmin took a dump and i convinced Best Buy to take it back rather then sending back to Garmin for a replacement.
They said they will give me the store credit for another unit, but now im thinking about not getting another unit since i have this phone.

Anyone trust this as their sole GPS for long trips?
Does either the Sprint Nav or Google maps do the spoken street names and such? Or just map based and not speak?

My Garmin actually died on a trip where I had my Evo and i set it up to finish the trip and ended up not using it to see how it works, but this all got me thinking. . . .

 

[msross]

I have used it many times and it works great. It's far better than the built in one on my Lexus

 

[Eazy123]

Not sure about the Evo, but last year I used Sprint Navigation on my Pre on a road trip from Chicago to Los Angeles and back, and it worked like a charm. Only drawback that I could see someone having is that you need a cell signal to initialize the navigation. For instance, I stopped at a diner in bumblefudge Utah near the Arizona border, and shut down navigation to conserve the battery. Unfortunately, I didn't get a cell signal there, so when I got back in the car, Navigation wouldn't initialize. I had to use my actual road map to continue on and once I found a signal, I was able to connect to navigation again. Once you start Sprint Navigation successfully, don't shut it down unless you are in an area with a cell signal. You could lose the signal and the GPS will still go fine until you shut it off.

You wouldn't have that issue with a standalone GPS. But even still, my road map + Sprint Navigation didn't get me lost once on that trip.

 

[sniffs]

I used the EVO to travel from Southern California, Orange County, to Show Low, AZ..

12 hour drive, GPS worked perfectly the entire way, both ways.

Google Nav caches the route, so if you lose cell signal, you will not lose GPS(GPS is line of sight however and if you go in tunnels, you'll temporarily lose signal)

the only time a cell signal is needed is for mapping data, and incase you take a wrong turn, for rerouting.

I wouldn't ever pay for any carrier navigation service as long as I have Google Nav.

 

[marclile]

sprint nav and google nav both do spoken turn by turn directions. both work pretty good. the voice on sprint's is a little more pleasing, in my opinion anyway. both of them will kill the battery though. real quick.

 

[PM-Performance]

How would that work if you are in an area where it is not getting cellular signal though?
Would it still be able to pull sattelites for nav?
Im just worried about getting stuck somewhere with no service and using this thing.

Does it have features like some of the better external GPS units?

EDIT:::;: just saw some more info after I saved.

I know it will kill the battery quick. I would very likely just keep it plugged in while using nav since it will be in the car.

 

[Averix]

Verify its stable

The GPS is really nice both with the Sprint app and Google Maps. However, my EVO has a habit of rebooting the first time either of those apps touch the GPS after it is turned on. After a reboot, as long as the GPS is one when it comes up, they will not crash when using the GPS. I've seen others with this problem. It may be hardware (rev 002), it may be software.

Either way, just make sure your phone doesn't crash when you use the GPS before getting too far from where you bought it.

 

[sniffs]

When you do the initial route, it caches the whole route.

Only time a cell signal is needed is for the initial map data and the only other time is if you take a wrong turn and it has to re-route, again, needed for mapping data.

If you purchase a mapping software that has pre-included maps that are stored on the SD, you dont need a cell signal.

 

[marclile]

How would that work if you are in an area where it is not getting cellular signal though?
Would it still be able to pull sattelites for nav?
Im just worried about getting stuck somewhere with no service and using this thing.

Does it have features like some of the better external GPS units?

EDIT:::;: just saw some more info after I saved.

I know it will kill the battery quick. I would very likely just keep it plugged in while using nav since it will be in the car.

i believe that the google one caches your route when you first get the directions so even if you loose cell signal, it will still continue to work. you wouldn't be able to navigate off of the route that it laid out though.

 

[marclile]

@sniffs - you beat me to it

 

[marclile]

and to the OP... i was actually thinking about buying a garmin too and after getting this phone and using the mapping solutions on it, i decided that i did not need to get one.

 

[PM-Performance]

Hmmmm. very interesting. Not as bad as I would have thought then.
That mapping software pretty expensive I assume?

Other thing is. . . .while in navigation mode, i am assuming you do not have ability for normal phone features like text, phone calls, ect correct?
I guess that could be a downside (being a passenger for lack of argument)

 

[Eazy123]

Google Nav caches the route, so if you lose cell signal, you will not lose GPS(GPS is line of sight however and if you go in tunnels, you'll temporarily lose signal)

Really? What if you back out of Google Nav, does it still keep the cache?

 

[Eazy123]

Hmmmm. very interesting. Not as bad as I would have thought then.
That mapping software pretty expensive I assume?

Other thing is. . . .while in navigation mode, i am assuming you do not have ability for normal phone features like text, phone calls, ect correct?
I guess that could be a downside (being a passenger for lack of argument)

On the Pre, I was able to text while navigating.

 

[marclile]

Really? What if you back out of Google Nav, does it still keep the cache?

if you just back out of it, it continues to run. to exit google nav, you have to hit menu and then exit navigation.

 

[sniffs]

Really? What if you back out of Google Nav, does it still keep the cache?

No, it loses it.

in my travels, I've lost signal on my EVO and it tracked the route perfectly on the cached map for over 30 minutes.

 

[marclile]

No, it loses it.

in my travels, I've lost signal on my EVO and it tracked the route perfectly on the cached map for over 30 minutes.

it continues to run in the background until you actually "exit navigation" though doesn't it?

 

[Eazy123]

That would be sick if there was a navigation program that could actually save (not just cache) entire sections of a map to the memory stick.

 

[marclile]

That would be sick if there was a navigation program that could actually save (not just cache) entire sections of a map to the memory stick.

i think i read somewhere that google was thinking about adding that functionality in the future sometime. probably not anytime soon i would guess though.

 

[sniffs]

it continues to run in the background until you actually "exit navigation" though doesn't it?

Yes, the route will save as long as you don't exit the nav app.. you can run it in the BG fine.. I've done it many many times.