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Due for cell upgrade


blitsseun

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SO I'm up for an upgrade.. always a happy moment in time. I love gadgets!! So I've got a options of the Samsung Galaxy Spica, Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 and then a friend chucked a spanner in the works and suggested the Blackberry Strom or Bold... SO any pointers on the best one for caching? I'm currently using an Omnia with GCzII and loving it.

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I just got a Nokia 5230 and use it with geocaching live. It works well for me as a secondary or "emergency" caching device. The gps works good and you also have the option of satelite images that can be helpfull in the field. The 5230 is however the stripped down version of the 5800. My upgrade unfortunately could not afford the better model.

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I just got a Nokia 5230 and use it with geocaching live. It works well for me as a secondary or "emergency" caching device. The gps works good and you also have the option of satelite images that can be helpfull in the field. The 5230 is however the stripped down version of the 5800. My upgrade unfortunately could not afford the better model.

 

Thanks Bouts, I'm going to look into it. :laughing:

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I'm using the BB 9700 Bold.

 

It is nice to have it with you in case you forget your GPS at home.

 

You can use the free Black Star app for caching but for US$10 you get Cacheberry.

 

You'll need a data plan of course (R59 for BIS for unlimited web access and email push) and then you can log your find online before you arrive back home. Or you can add a Field note to help you with logging your cached for the day.

 

You plot your cached for the day on BB maps to see where you have to drive. The navigator shows you where to drive but without voice instruction.

 

I've read the touch screen BB's is not ideal for outdoor activities (due to dust and scratching I presume).

 

Worm

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I've used my new BlackBerry Curve 8900 for the first time today for GeoCaching with CacheBerry, and I found it less than ideal. Granted, I was doing a multi-cache and my main pain was that there doesn't seem to be a way to navigate to waypoints one after the other, which was annoying. Currently I use my GPS for geocaching, and I carry my BlackBerry with me with all the cache info preloaded for paperless caching in the field. I did a lot of the caches in the silvermine area yesterday, where there is very limited cellphone reception in places, and the GPS+BB combination worked like a charm.

 

Having said that, I've downloaded BlackStar and will use it over the next few days to do a cache or two. I'll report back on its performance with the BB as a caching device.

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I went through a similar process of deciding on a phone (see forime topic here)

 

I've ended up with a Nokia 5800 - you get a lot of phone for your buck. I use SmartGPX for the paperless part and generally still use a dedicated GPSr for caches - partly because of battery life when using the GPS on the phone and partly that it is nice to be able to read the listing on one device and input coords and navigate with the other device, otherwise you have to switch between applications. GClive works very well for caching on the fly provided you have cellphone reception - it is not heavy on data. The big downside of using a cellphone as GPS is battery life - I would get about an hour out of the phone. But if you are just doing a short caching expedition or am near the car to recharge it that also works well. Nokias come with free maps and voice navigation these days, which can be fun to play with. I have not used Nokia Maps for finding caches as it does not give you precision navigation for that last bit to ground zero.

 

The phone is a little blocky - but I'm hoping that it has that same Nordic reliability built in as those cars from the same region that were also a bit blocky.

 

Another cacher I know that beats drums for a living was not a fan of a touchscreen and liked using Trekbuddy, but you have to download maps at different zooms beforehand and I believe he has since found the free Nokia maps and GClive more than adequate.

 

Yet another cacher I know who mends people for a living is a big fan of the iPhone. It certainly looks very cool. But then he still uses his Garmin for finding caches.

 

Difficult one - so much to choose from.

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Hi Blitsseun

 

Welcome to the sport. I got into Geocaching via the Groundspeak free app on my iPhone. In the beginning we were not very successful as we used a combination of free applications and Google maps. Once we decided that we would continue geocaching, I bought the Groundspeak app for $10.00 and it has been a breeze since then. I do not own another GPS and we are heading for 200 finds and have placed 10 caches. I firmly believe that our recent find rate would not be any different even if we owned a “proper GPS”. I have done one spot check of my iPhone 3gs compared to another cacher’s Garmin and the phone was spot on. I am happy with the phone and will continue caching with it as is will bring you close enough to GZ to enable you to find the cache. It is also fair to warn you that it is not the best tool for Geocaching as we have experienced some serious issues with the Groundspeak app and battery life sucks. (Most of the issues have been sorted since) You need and extension battery (which I don’t have yet) and a car charger. It does seem that these problems also occur with other phones. I will not use this to hunt caches in isolated places because the battery will not last more than about 1 hour when fully charged. (This is since the latest firmware updates and only if you use the GPS in conjunction with the 3G for downloading maps while searching).

In conclusion I do however believe that the iPhone is the best thing since sliced bread (or is that canned beer) and if I were to upgrade I will choose between 3 options;

1) iPhone 4… or

2) iPhone 4 …or

3) iPhone 4.

If you do not want to encounter the problem mentioned, buy a GPS and use the phone for the paperless side of caching.

Just my opinion.

Happy hunting

TCNZ’s

Edited by The Could Not Zee's
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I'm due for an upgrade again.

Any ideas or suggestions for geocaching friendly phones on the market these days?

 

I've been using a BlackBerry Bold (9780) with CacheSense for more than a year and it's brilliant. Accurate, quick, userfriendly and all the paperless features I need. Only complaints I have relates to the BB maps, i.e. (i) it resets to the map scale every time you leave and return to this function, so you have to zoom in again, (ii) the map doesn't scroll automatically on the live map/direction view and on the map it only displays the cache code, not the cache name.

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