Best hand held gps

[paultallett]

Asked a similar question re android phone as back up and advice was to download an app, turn phone into airplane mode and turn on GPS and see if it worked. It did.. So that will be my back up, but only in emergencies. Will keep charged via 12v socket en route and only use it if necesary. That said we will be doing regular plots on paper charts as well....

Be interested to know what you do decide on though.

+1 took the words out of my mouth. If things go down and I'm in back up mode, then power conservation and very regular plots become the order of the day.

 

[Seastoke]

ok garmin or phone but the i phone gets its gps signal from aerials does it not and the garmin from satalites so is it not hard for phones to get signal ,put me right

 

[Seastoke]

ho hi philz we are going isle of man

 

[julians]

ok garmin or phone but the i phone gets its gps signal from aerials does it not and the garmin from satalites so is it not hard for phones to get signal ,put me right

That's incorrect, the iphone (and most other smartphones) get their signal from the same satellites as the garmin/raymarine/whatever.

Phones do supplement the GPS signal with signals from aerials (mobile network cells) and nearby wifi networks to get a faster fix, but if neither of these are present it just uses the satellites the same as a regular marine GPS system.

 

[Seastoke]

ok we have iphone 5s also ipad with navionics but no gps is there anyway we can use the gps from phone and link to ipad some how help

 

[paultallett]

ok we have iphone 5s also ipad with navionics but no gps is there anyway we can use the gps from phone and link to ipad some how help

Does your ipad have a sim or can it take one?? If so it will have a built in gps that just needs activating. If not, I believe it'll get its fix via the mobile service.

If that's the case, load navonics on to the phone (won't cost anything assuming the accounts are linked) and keep that as back up.

 

[Seastoke]

i pad is not on contract and no sim

 

[BrendanS]

i pad is not on contract and no sim

If your iPad has no sim slot, it doesn't have GPS built in, and no, you can't get the GPS from the iPhone to link to the iPad.
Unless you can find an app that runs on both iPhone and iPad, that transfers GPS details from iPhone to iPad via bluetooth or similar, but I'd not bother looking, as it won't be an easy solution to make that work within a Nav package unless it is built in, and still a bit cumbersome to use

 

[secretagentmole]

I have a mobile with a marine package on, not as good as the lttle colour Garmin handheld we have with the UK and Ireland charts on.

Get a Garmin!

 

[Philiz]

ho hi philz we are going isle of man

Nice one, you'll enjoy it. Personally i'd get a little Garmin fixed plotter rather than an hand-held unit. You can get a 451 for £230, not much more than an hand-held and more reliable IMHO.