Android htc Desire and GeoBeagle

[+undermanager]

After a few days of tinkering and making sure both worked, I was out this sunny morning to put both through their paces. I'd loaded up the phone with a pocket query of a few hundred caches and off we went. At home, I messed up loading the caches by creating a folder called sdcard, and another called download, but soon realised that I just needed a folder called download!

 

I turned the GPS on on my Desire, opened up GeoBeagle and had side-by-side my trusted Oregon 300 to start with. The Desire was taking me to the caches with great accuracy, as accurate as the Oregon. I was a little surprised how good it was to be honest, fully expecting the phone GPS to be slightly less accurate than the Oregon 300, but no, not at all. The Desire's signal was clear and strong today in clear skys, as good as the Oregon. GeoBeagle gave me an option to log my find by SMS but changed this to log finds with on the SD card. The list of caches was easy to use in GeoBeagle, all the info you needed was there at a touch including logs and hint, and the compass display was excellent. The display on the Desire was fine, even though it was very sunny. Sometimes, I had to shield the phone to see the display, but it was fine to use in bright sunlight. Again, I was expecting slight problems from what I'd read, but no, none at all.

 

What I was really amazed at though were the maps on the Desire. It was brilliant to see the caches on proper maps rather than the Oregon 300's outline map. I've never got round to buying maps for the Oregon - perhaps I missed out. The pre-loaded Google maps and GeoBeagle were great to use together, a real pleasure.

 

What I need to work out next is how to display caches on an OS map on my desire. I'd really like to be able to show footpaths, bridleways etc around the UK Any ideas / recommendations / suggestions.

 

The battery on the phone went down a bar after being out 3 hours. It will be interesting to see how long the battery lasts when out for a full day. I wouldn't go out without a spare phne battery when geocaching though as I guess the gps will eat power..

 

The lack of bulk and weight of the phone compared to the Oregon was fantastic, a real joy that I hadn't considered before leaving. I can see the Oregon being relegated to being a back-up device now. Garmin will have its work cut out, with phones and software like these on the market!

 

Overall, hello Desire and GeoBeagle, goodbye Oregon!! I'm really looking forward to trying out the software recommended by 'Mike'. Many thanks for the top pointers.

 

 

Undermanager

[NordicMan]

Sounds like you had a great day out comparison testing your gadgets!

 

Yep Smartphone caching is quite nice, and in my opinion it is the wave of the future.. sooner or later "almost everyone" will be using some sort of Smartphone because of all their advantages. A couple of problems though,.. 1) most of them are too darn fragile! Don't drop your HTC Desire on a rock or in water/mud lol, 2) most Smartphones have poor battery life. And finally 3) make sure whatever software you're using will still work when you're beyond range of a good cell/data signal. Google maps is only awesome if it can find your phone

 

For your Oregon, why not head over to www.gpsfiledepot.com and grab some "free" maps for it? They'll really make your Oregon shine a lot more than using just the basemaps

Edited July 4, 2010 by NordicMan

[+undermanager]

Hi NordicMan

 

Thanks for your comments. I think you are right. The Oregon will tolerate a lot more rough use than a smart phone - care, a case and some good insurance are in order I think. Thanks for the tip re gpsfiledepot.com I went cycling in Iceland for a month last year just before the volcano exploded and got a map via that site but haven't used it since. Time for another visit.

 

All the best

[+John Drake]

Thanks for your comments. I think you are right. The Oregon will tolerate a lot more rough use than a smart phone - care, a case and some good insurance are in order I think. Thanks for the tip re gpsfiledepot.com I went cycling in Iceland for a month last year just before the volcano exploded and got a map via that site but haven't used it since. Time for another visit.

You should also check out the Open Street Maps (OSM) available for Garmin devices. In particular for the UK and Germany, these maps can be very good.

 

See for example the free talkytoaster maps of the UK and Ireland:

 

http://talkytoaster.info/ukmaps.htm

 

Unfortunately, I haven't yet found a good OSM application for Android which works as well as the maps on a Garmin device.

 

Cheers.