anyone changed their mind in the garmin v. smartphone debate?

Too much hassle to use your phone for GPS for numerous reasons if you are in and out of the car a lot. Mounting, un-mounting, battery life, answering the phone and sending and receiving text are the main reasons. It is just much simpler for me to have a dedicated GPS on the dash.

Yes I have changed my mind. I will no longer waste any of my energy lugging around a cell phone! My land line works great and if I need to make an emergency call I will just borrow one of thousands around me.

I use my Garmin eTrex 20 when I'm hiking. I've attempted to use my smart phone ocassionally, and I find that many places I hike the phone GPS won't lock onto my position. This is not always when I'm out of cell phone range, either.

Using another map app other than Google Maps might be interesting, but I don't know if the other map will work with existing apps like FaceBook. (Generally, the only GPS activity I attempt on my smart phone is to Check In on FaceBook. But if it can't find where I am...)

IF there was another app available that would do a better job of locking onto my position AND would be recognized by other apps, I would still have a major issue with my smart phone vs. my eTrex. My eTrex will run on a pair of AA batteries for over 24 hours. Swapping out batteries is easy, and I can get fully charged batteries at a gas station. I don't know how long my smart phone will last with the GPS on. However, I doubt that it will last over 12 hours. I generally, without the GPS on, last less than a day before I need to recharge. Add the GPS's power drain, and I suspect that 12 hours of life for my phone is top.

I bring my smart phone with me so that, if there's an emergency (and I'm in cell phone range) I'll be able to call the cops. If I've killed the phone using the GPS, I'm out of luck. (If I get concerned enough, I'll get a SPOT. Fourteen days on a set of AA's seems extremely reasonable.)

My wife and I cell phone didn't work in the dense forest...but do you know what saved the day..yeah, Garminita. Enough said.

Coke vs Pepsi, Chevy vs Ford, list goes on. Personally, I like that I get to have a choice. I like the combination of small smartphone and large dedicated GPS.

Unfortunately for me, smartphones are getting huge these days to fit in my pocket, and I refuse the "fashion statement" of clipping one on my belt.

I know a few people who still have one, but it's getting rare.

In the Phx. Metro area I trust Google Maps a little more than the Garmin. And Street-view at night for finding residential addresses is pure win! A picture is literally worth a 1000 words.

stand alone GPS units like Garmin are quickly becoming a niche product for specialized uses.

I bought half a dozen Garmins and several TomTom's before. I have not bought a GPS since 2009, when I got my first Android.

I now use my Android phone exclusively for navigation. Can't remember the last time I dug out the GPS in my bag (always keep it there for emergency - but never needed it).

Smartphone by a LANDSLIDE over stand-alone GPS, for me and virtually the vast majority of people out there.

The interoperability that is possible on a smartphone or tablet has much greater potential than is likely to ever be available on a standalone GPS nav unit.

Useful apps like Gasbuddy and RoadNinja surpass similar features (that often cost extra) on standalone units. As an example of the interoperability I recently discovered that when a gas station is selected in GasBuddy, it prompts you to select which nav app to use to guide you to it. RoadNinja provides a better way to see what POIs are available at upcoming exits than any standalone nav unit (which typically provide a far more rudimentary way of presenting those POIs). The Mapquest app also makes it easier to find POIs than standalone units, and offers several useful options, like pasting in a group of waypoints, and the option to display "if you pass X, you've gone too far" in the turn-by-turn directions. These are just a few examples; other apps have other advantages too.

Tablets also offer a much larger display than any standalone nav unit.

But the mapping/nav apps themselves do not quite provide the smooth, problem free functionality as their direct standalone counterparts. The problems are easy to find if you know how, but they seem to be more pronounced on longer trips. People who just use them for local trips may never encounter the routing anomalies I've noticed in Navigon, CoPilot and even TomTom (Android). I can't speak about the iOS versions, as I've never tested those.

Also, some tablets (and probably some smartphones) have less sensitive GPS receivers than even bargain basement standalone nav units.

I think eventually the smartphone/tablet apps will kill off most of the standalones, at least for most routine mapping/nav tasks, but maybe it will take a lot longer for the niche products to suffer the same fate.

It all comes down to whether you want to use dedicated tools or a "Swiss Army Knife" (though admittedly, that analogy overstates the difference in this case).

The smart phone has to deal with many interruptions:
o Phone calls
o Text
o eMails

I don't even like the idea of the phone running a red light camera app like Trapster and another app like Google Maps at the same time.

I like a dedicated device for maps/routing which will also pop up warnings and sounds for speed cameras.

This is just my preference.

A dedicated GPS really cuts down on the distraction while driving. Plus it allows my cell phone to serve the purpose for which I bought it. To communicate!!!

Garmin for routing after finding destination with iPhone

1. No internatinal roaming charge
2. Works when there is no cell coverage

I frequently do the same thing. Because many of the areas I travel to have poor cell reception, it's nice to have a regular GPS when there's no cell signal.

Ummm you haven't used a smart phone much then, which means you likely get very few calls / texts / emails.

Android phones deal with phone calls while navigating very well. Same with texts / emails which are of no bother while running GPS.

It's funny, those who complain about these things are actually the least likely to be calling / texting / emailing because they actually are far less social than those with smartphones.