Tech Devices to Navigate Paris, Rome, etc

[pgnewarkboy]

We have some european travel planned and will be hitting the main cities in Paris and Italy with travel to and from major points by rail. No plans to rent a car. I have stayed out of the Iphone, smartphone, android, etc. arena but am considering getting the right provider and device for my travel purposes.

I want something, if it exists, which will be location sensitive for navigating (walking or buses or trains) the cities of europe. I want to know what train to catch, how much further to my hotel and how to get there, local restaurants and how to get there, and sights to see.

Which way do I go on this? An android phone with Google maps? An Iphone. My contract is up with my current provider and will switch to get what I need.

Thanks.

 

[jnjn]

Go to Best Buy

If I were you, I would go to Best Buy and talk to Best Buy Mobile. They know much more about that stuff than most uf us do. Most things you are looking for are common. Train info and such would probably require a data plan. You could arrange something with your carrier or setup something there.

 

[PStreet1]

Battery life is a problem with gps units.

 

[MULTIZ321]

PG,

I would consider the Motorola Droid. In addition to Google Maps, you could bookmark www.hopstop.com - that takes you to their homepage where you can click on the London and Paris hyperlinks to find out how to get from Point A to Point B in those cities (or put in the specific city URL into your bookmarks). I did this for a recent trip to Washington, DC and it worked great.

For Rome visit http://www.atac.roma.it/index.asp
When you get to their home page it will be in Italian. In the upper right corner of the homepage is a small Italian Flag with 'Italiano' adjacent to the Flag. Hover your cursor over the Flag and click on English to change the language of the website. You can add this to your browser bookmarks as well. I use the Dolphin Browser which I like better than the Droid default browser.

Have a good trip.

Richard

 

[Passepartout]

I wouldn't buy one just for this purpose, but if you already have the GPS, Garmin sells city guides, including public transit and pedestrian info for all the places you mention, downloadable or on Micro-SD for about $10 each. As mentioned, battery life is an issue. Mine is just good for about 4 hours on battery power. Otoh, if you only have it on long enough to acquire signal then get your directions then turn it off, that should give a day's use easily.

I wonder if using something like this on any large city street doesn't make you pickpocket/mugger bait. Something to consider.

Jim Ricks

 

["Roger"]

This is what Jim (previous post) is talking about.

I haven't used one nor seen one of their devices with "enhansed pedestrian navigation." But it seems to made for what your are intending. Like Jim, I would not buy one just for this purpose, but if you are in the market for a GPS or an upgrade .... then ???

 

[MULTIZ321]

PG,

I forgot about the CDMA vs GSM phone differences for the US and Europe.
So Droid may not be the best phone choice for calls in Europe.

I also learned something new about GPS versus "A-GPS' technology.

Here is a copy and paste of a post in a "Anyone Use Their Droid in Europe" thread in Droidforums.net

" I’m about to go to Europe too, made maps for Orux (an offline capable GPS map application), and after some research realized I wasted my time, and that it won’t work with the Droid in Europe for the following reason:

Most phones, as with the Droid, with "GPS" in fact use A-GPS technology. The "A" stands for assisted, and means that the phone relies on the network for help in determining location. Although the phone does receive GPS signals directly from the satellites, it can't determine actual location without help from the cell network.

gpsOne is a position location technology developed by SnapTrack, a subsidiary of Qualcomm. GpsOne is an A-GPS technology, meaning it uses GPS satellites in conjunction with land-based stations (towers) to determine a phone’s location.

Phones with gpsOne can receive raw signals directly from GPS satellites, but require a live connection to a network-based location server
to do so. The location server helps the phone find the correct satellites. The location server also processes the raw signals and makes the final calculations that determine location.

gpsOne is integrated into most Qualcomm CDMA chipsets, and is the position location technology used by most CDMA carriers.

From the sounds of it, the only way the Droid's GPS would work in Europe is if it had a Standalone (autonomous) GPS reciever (like a Garmin or TomTom does) or had International GSM roaming. Sadly it does not have either of those, and therefore the GPS will not work outside of the Verizon/CDMA network (800/1900 MHz).

Read more GPS vs. A-GPS: A Quick Tutorial: http://www.wmexperts.com/articles/gps_vs_agps_a_quick_tutorial.html
Last edited by Droid- DC; 02-24-2010 at 12:24 PM."


Richard

 

[tompalm]

Roaming on a cell phone will cost a ton of money and data roaming will cost about two tons of money. I would recommend the Garmin GPS 275 and you can buy on the net for less than $200. It comes with Europe maps on it and most Garmins offer the option for walking or driving. I don't know if that is available in Europe. If you are more of a techie, the 775 offers route planning. I would go to Best Buy and try them out, but they might not have those models. Most of the info about them should be on forums on Amazon or other parts of the net. Here is a link for the three models that Garmin sells with Europe preloaded. https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=134

I used the Iphone in Tokyo and it provided everything that you asked for. However, I had a plan with Softbank, a Japanese company and the cost was about the same as it is here in the USA. It was a two year contract, .....

You might be able to rent a cell phone in Europe that would do everything that you want it to do, but the Garmin GPS would be cheaper and better.

 

[Ken555]

The newer iPhone will do what you want with the TomTom software. It does not require any data access to operate. I have friends who have done this and reported good results. There are probably other software solutions as well. I'm not up to speed on all the latest and greatest gps apps.

 

[pgnewarkboy]

Thanks for the great info. It got me looking in the right direction. T-Mobile is introducing an Android Garmin phone in the middle of June. A endgadget review gives it a thumbs up for navigation ability which can all be done off line. Including info on subways etc using citixplore maps. A plus for me is that T-Mobile is my current carrier and uses GSM which is the Europeean standard. I could unlock the phone and buy a sim chip in Europe to save some money. The review does not give it great grades as a phone for power users - but I am not one of those people. It seems to meet my basic requirements which are excellent navigation and basic phone usable in Europe.

 

[tompalm]

Re: Android Garmin phone

Make sure that it has maps for Europe, or you can buy maps and update the phone. Of all the Garmin products, only three come with the Europe maps already installed, and to buy Europe Maps cost almost as much as a new GPS, or the Garmin 275.

I was never one to jump on the band wagon when the Iphone came out. But, I got one about a year ago and amazed how much I love it. There are so many Aps that I use all the time like wx, ESPN, PGA, Real Estate, pandora, news, slingbox, stocks market, email and others that I am sold on the product. The phone is good, but the Aps make it great. Skype is one of the best Aps overseas. If you are anywhere that has wi-fi, you can call anywhere in the world for about 2 cents a minute, or if they are on their computer, the call is free.

My son unlocked the phone and I use it on Tmobile. I turn the data plan on when I travel, but usually just use wi-fi at home. Tmobile doesn't care if you have an Iphone and there are people on Craigslist that will unlock it for you.

However, I don't recommend going that route. I just happened to have an extra Iphone and a son with know how to unlock it.

If you can buy a sim card for the Iphone in Europe, you can probably get a sim card for the data plan. AT&T uses the same network as Tmobile, so if Tmobile works, than AT&T should work in Europe.