Best GPS for hiking ap for my cell

[bignslow]

FWIW, I've had really great success with the Galaxy S7 series for waterproofness, including one stint where it fell out of my pocket while jumping off rocks in the Green River where it spent at least 10 minutes submerged under 4-6' of water while we made repeated attempts to swim to it and grab it (strong currents made this way harder than it sounds). Down side is that the front/back glass aren't really drop resistant (I've killed 1 by breaking the back, which eventually succumbed to water ingress, and the other has a broken corner on the front which hasn't yet impacted usability)

[peakbagger]

Good feedback. I picked up an Otterbox for mine. Makes it clunky but expect it will protect it albeit a lot less sleek.

[briarpatch]

Does the Otterbox case have an attachment point for a lanyard? This winter I was looking at Gaia and snowshoeing and tripped and fell. Arms posthole into the powder. Get back up on my feet and then realize the phone is not in hand. Took some digging and time to locate the phone in the snow. Thought that with a brightly color lanyard the phone would be easier to find if I drop it next winter.

[peakbagger]

It will need to check I dont thinks so . Its good idea. I take a close look

[Barkingcat]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Samsung galaxy Duo. Its a phone made for commercial use. Not a high performer but robust. In the past my mil spec phones have gone swimming in drains and have been dropped a story or two plus on occasion I work in hot humid steam plants. They held up and hope this one will for the next year or so before I retire. These conditions seem to line up with off trail hiking.

Thanks, dude!

[ChrisB]

Happy with the free version thus far.

Tim

Gaia users , how does the app do regarding battery drain?

Does it use more batt when in Track mode?

Can you run it continually all day without the phone dying? I am trying it on an iPhone 7.

[peakbagger]

BTW, for those who travel its can run dual sims.i dont need it but I know folks who travel who set up a temporary account in a foreign country and use the foreign account instead of their US account.

[Jazzbo]

This looks like a great phone. The Amazon ad you pointed to indicates you can replace the battery which is nice feature Samsung used to offer in the Galaxy phone. The other feature which sounds attractive is supposed to be operable with gloves on. That's one thing I don't like about using the Smart phone for GPS in winter conditions. I wonder if you can operate with say light weight winter glove or what.... Smartphone has a larger screen so it is tempting to use it instead of Garmin.

BTW I use Gaia. I like the way Gaia keeps my tracks showing. This may not be helpful to Grid chasers as tracks would be there 12 deep. Heaven help multiple Grid hikers. I can get my Garmin GPSMAP 66i to show past tracks, but I have to locate the track and instruct device to show track to show on map. As bushwhacker type I frequently revisit areas to find more better or different way to get to my objectives so it is nice to have the previous tracks to use as guide. I find the internal file structure for Samsung/Gaia to be confusing or hard to deal with. I find I need to export the track via email to download to my PC. I maintain GPS track files in My Garmin on my PC. I upload my tracks to Caltopo which I subscribe to. I use Caltopo to make and print out maps for hikes.

[ChrisB]

Gaia users , how does the app do regarding battery drain?

I did my first hike using the free Gaia app and must say I'm impressed. It works great, is very accurate and quite gentle on my iPhone battery.

I used it on a 5 mile trek in the Belknaps yesterday up Whiteface and Piper via the Whiteface trail. The hike took about 4 hours and with the phone in Airplane mode and Gaia running I used about 12% of the battery. Not bad.

The GPS continually indicated 16-foot accuracy and the elevation values were consistent with map values. The Gaia Topo was adequately detailed seemed up-to-date. For everyday hiking it seemed fine.

The Track Pause feature was handy for the lunch stop and I really liked the user interface in general for being easy to use and logically laid out. Thanks to those here who recommended Gaia.

QUESTION FOR GAIA USERS: The Gaia Topo displays what looks like interval mileage values between trail junctions, peaks, etc. But these don't seem add up to actual mileage measured. Anybody know what these intervals indicate or if they are accurate?

[JoshandBaron]

I did my first hike using the free Gaia app and must say I'm impressed. It works great, is very accurate and quite gentle on my iPhone battery.

I used it on a 5 mile trek in the Belknaps yesterday up Whiteface and Piper via the Whiteface trail. The hike took about 4 hours and with the phone in Airplane mode and Gaia running I used about 12% of the battery. Not bad.

The GPS continually indicated 16-foot accuracy and the elevation values were consistent with map values. The Gaia Topo was adequately detailed and up to date. For everyday hiking it seemed fine.

The Track Pause feature was handy for the lunch stop and I really liked the user interface in general for being easy to use and logically laid out.

Thanks to those here who recommended Gaia. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks! )

There are a few articles on SectionHiker about Gaia that may be useful. This one is specifically regarding battery conservation: https://sectionhiker.com/gaiagps-app...nagement-tips/

[peakbagger]

Phil Werner the owner of Section Hiker is or was a beta tester for Gaia.

To answer Jazzbo's question, yes the battery is replaceable.

[ChrisB]

There are a few articles on SectionHiker about Gaia that may be useful. This one is specifically regarding battery conservation: https://sectionhiker.com/gaiagps-app...nagement-tips/

Thanks for the links . I picked up some good info.

Turning off the compass and elevation display save a few joules of juice.

[DayTrip]

I think a lot of the info on the Section Hiker site is now out of date since CalTopo has launched an app and pay memberships. None of the PDF's I print now are georeferenced and do not work in Avenza. I no longer can print KMZ files in Caltopo to use on my actual GPS unit. Does anyone know if the paid versions of CalTopo still have any of these features? I tried Googling these topics but most of the articles I have come across are pre CalTopo pay model and cover the methods that previously worked but now do not. Seems like all the great free options that used to be available are slowing drifting into the pay-for-use universe.

[JToll]

I can still generate pdf maps in Caltopo that work in Avenza for free, but the maps can only be generated in the desktop version of Caltopo, not on the smartphone app. Caltopo also just totally changed the user interface in the desktop version, but everything is still there, just in different places.

[DayTrip]

I can still generate pdf maps in Caltopo that work in Avenza for free, but the maps can only be generated in the desktop version of Caltopo, not on the smartphone app. Caltopo also just totally changed the user interface in the desktop version, but everything is still there, just in different places.

I only use the desktop version. Are you specifically selecting something so they are georeferenced? I never had to do anything special in the past and they worked. I don't recall seeing anything different in the print dialog but maybe I missed something. They have done a lot of tinkering to the user interface.