If one buys a TomTom or a Magellen or whatever, do you have to buy a monthly subscription as well? Just wondering. My new phone has a decent enough GPS Navigation program in it, but it costs $9/month. I've kind of wanted one to get one, but don't know a damn thing about them.
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Nate
offlineMemberYou should be able to get the digital maps and no monthly fee unless it has extra features. The standard GPS on an iPhone fixes a position from the GPS and then downloads map segments from a central location. No connection to the server means no map and mine doesn't show lat and long
The standard GPS doesn't talk to anything, just gets a fix from GPS and shows it on the map from it's local database. It will work anywhere but can't show extras such as traffic and the maps will be only as accurate as the last time you updated the data base. If you can go on line and update the database there might be a yearly or monthly fee.
My aircraft Garmin 530 gets updated when the pilot gets on line and downloads the latest database to a memory card and then loads the data onto the device.
I know that there are other GPS products for my phone that include the database so they should update automatically and work where there is no connectivity. I would expect that there might be a monthly or yearly fee.
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Adlai Stevenson - more or less.Posted 2 years ago # -
Infinidean said:
If one buys a TomTom or a Magellen or whatever, do you have to buy a monthly subscription as well? Just wondering. My new phone has a decent enough GPS Navigation program in it, but it costs $9/month. I've kind of wanted one to get one, but don't know a damn thing about them.I don't know how it works in the US but here my Navaman came with the latest Maps for Australia already loaded, the unit picks up the position from the GPS sats and then moves the map so location is displayed, it also calculates speed for me and can calculate time of arrival at your destination if you have that set, using your current speed. to upgrade to a newer map cost about half the cost of buying a new unit. No subscription needed for the basics.
Some brands have the ability to update current traffic info and then re-rout to avoid congestion but thats a subscription service and as I dont have or need that I have no idea what they cost.
Get what you can afford/need but remember the bigger the screen the better and spoken street names is also good.
You can get Tom Tom gps software for an iPhone, its around the $70 to $90 mark and from all accounts its pretty good. So if you already have an iPhone its a cheap way to get a decent GPS. It also has the maps already pre loaded so no wireless or data signal is needed to keep the maps up on the screen.
steer clear of the cheaper brands, the interface is usually pretty dodgy and not intuitive as well as lacking some (IMHO) basic features like speed display and route logging, so when that Indiana State trooper gives you a ticket for speeding you can take the GPS log to court and prove you were not in fact speeding :-)(Its happened a few times here in Australia)Prayer, [noun] - the act or practice of telling God that his infallible plan sucks and that you demand changes ASAPPosted 2 years ago # -
Infinidean said:
If one buys a TomTom or a Magellen or whatever, do you have to buy a monthly subscription as well? Just wondering. My new phone has a decent enough GPS Navigation program in it, but it costs $9/month. I've kind of wanted one to get one, but don't know a damn thing about them.Depends on the phone/available programs. From what I've seen, most of the apps from the carriers does not install the maps, so you use lots of your data plan. I've tried a few for the Win 6+ os, I now use the freeware Google maps as it is more accurate, though no turn by turn yet. For my rural area, I don't need that.
Politicians and diapers have one thing in common. They both should be changed regularly and for the same reason.Posted 2 years ago #
