dantesbrewery

Umm, all GPS devices are satellite based. A smartphone with a built in GPS receiver still uses satellite signals. Most smartphones use 'assisted GPS' by accessing the cellular network to get satellite data. As we discovered a few weeks ago, if one goes outside the cellular network, the GPS functions including the Geocaching app are useless. A 'standalone GPS' receiver that accesses the satellite data directly will work where smartphones with only assisted GPS fail.

If you are interested in a smartphone for all the other features besides geocaching you may want to look at what Steve Job's has called "the best selling iPhone without a phone plan", the iPod touch. I use the iPod touch for all the apps others use on an iPhone, Android or Blackberry, except if I'm out of a wi-fi hotspot "my email can wait". No phone plan or data plan to worry about. I just use a cheap pay-as-you-go mobile phone. I'm just not deep into geocaching enough to spring for a good dedicated satellite-based GPS receiver at this time. There are some options available to turn an iPod touch into a GPS receiver. Bad Elf, Dual and Magellan are three possible options for converting an iPod touch into a satellite-based GPS receiver. Plus one can still listen to music and podcasts, take pictures, write notes, play games, check email, tweet, etc. Cheers, B.

As we are new to geocaching, we were using an iPhone 4 with the Geocaching app on the Southern Gulf Islands (the ones in British Columbia between Vancouver and Victoria) a couple of weeks ago. Once we got out of a 3G cellular service area, the app was no longer usable. We also had data roaming turned off to avoid paying nearby expensive US cellular service charges. If you will always been in areas with good 3G cellular service, the iPhone 4 with an app will work fine. For areas outside of a cellular service area, look at satellite-based GPS like the Magellan or look at a Bad Elf for the iPhone/iPod Touch. My Bad Elf just made it through Canada Customs and is sitting at CanadaPost, ready to pickup and try out on my iPod touch 4G. B.