[clug] Looking to buy a GPS

[Drew Parsons]

On Mon, 2007-08-27 at 17:51 +1000, Alex Satrapa wrote:
> On 27/08/2007, at 16:30 , michael.ross at atice.org wrote:
> 
> > Are you in the market for a new mobile? The Nokia N95 and 6110 both  
> > come
> > with an inbuild GPS unit + mapping software.
> 
> Pardon me if I'm muddying the waters - but is this actually a stand- 
> alone GPS, or is it one which relies on the GPS calculations being  
> done by servers on the mobile phone network?
> 
> I know that many "GPS phones" have the receiver in the handset, but  
> offload the rest of the functionality to services on the network  
> (doing the position calculation and preparing the map images). It  
> would be a shame to buy a nifty new GPS phone, get lost in the bush,  
> and pull out your phone to find out where you are, only to discover  
> that the GPS only works when you have 3+ bars coverage...
> 
> Alex
> 

The N95 is a stand-alone GPS, so it will work without the mobile
network, locking in within a minute or two.  

However if you do allow it to triangulate with the help of the phone
network, it will lock in much much quicker (10 sec).

It uses up the batteries pretty quickly, you'll be recharging each night
(or evening even) if you use the GPS a lot during the day.

Drew