And I have ViewRanger for android which uses OS Maps - best of both worlds (and yes, I carry a portable power pack if actually relying on it for hiking!)
For anyone who doesn't know, Bing Maps have an OS Map option.
+1 I have a 16 year old apprentice that is able to read a map book. A skill that he learnt in the Scouts.
In message , ARW writes
Scouts is where I learned to read a map. I'm often grateful to the Scouts, who gave me at least a rudimentary knowledge of so many basic things, like cooking, which are still useful today.
It all depends where you live and how many people are using the information provided.
In my area of the UK an accident on either of two main routes results in long delays BUT even longer delays on the satnav alternative routes as every man and his dog attempts to avoid the blockage.
How many times have you forgotten to charge it? With something that you don't use often or charge often it would be easy to forget. My smarter phone just gets plonked on the charging pad when I come home.
My old smarter phone is now a media player so they tend to have a second life.
The main thing my phone is used for is internet for other devices, even with unlimited land line calls its only used as a phone a few times a week.
Other uses it gets are..
two party login verification remote control for media players camera if I need to read some small print camera if I don't trust the people parked next to me so I know who it was Somewhere to keep the shopping list price checker etc. etc.
Once you have a smart phone you soon realise that ordinary phones are, well, just phones.
Psychologists have long shown people have different mental methods for mapping their route. One is to mentally visualise the map and the path you are taking, and another is to remember the sequence of turns. Most people use both in various forms, but some people are much better at one or the other. In particular, the ability to mentally visualise a map is something which varies enormously between people and something that can't be taught to some people (at least, not past a certain age) - these people map their route by remembering turn sequences and probably become much better at remembering turn sequences as a result, but can't handle an unexpected change in the route because they don't have a mental image of a map. Men tend to be better at visualising maps, but this may be because of early educational differences at the time when the brain is susceptible to such learning rather than male/female genetic differences in the brain.
This mental mapping ability is likely to spill over into other technologies too, such as being able to visualise a circuit diagram, a complex network of data connections and routers, gantt charts, etc. So it is really important to be teaching mapping at an early age when the brain is particularly susceptible to learning it, as not having this skill may well impact other activities that person might want to undertake later in life which are nothing to do with map reading.
If you want to see how good someone's brain is at mapping, give them a blank sheet of paper and get them to draw a map of where they live from memory out to some number of miles (1 - 10, depending on road density, e.g. Central London or rural area). We had to do this on joining secondary school and I remember thinking it was too easy for a class lesson, but then being very surprised at how bad many of the childrens' maps were. (Secondary school is too late to teach map reading, or rather map visualisation. If you can't do it by then, you probably never will.)
Yup, if someone doesn't want a smartphone then there is no sense in having one. I like my smartphone, and use it all the time and would really miss it. But I have a stupidphone in the car as a 'just in case' phone. If going out for a walk from the car very far I tend to chuck it in the bag as a backup.
Well, I'll not go down that route, value rather depends on what you want the device to do.
It may be possible to improve mental mapping as a coping strategy. My wife suffers from motion sickness if she reads or looks at a map in a vehicle (even a train or an aeroplane). So when she started navigating (eg as a passenger or driver in a car) she "learned" to take a mental photograph of the map beforehand which she could refer to "offline" to give her turn-by-turn directions as clearly as if she was still looking a the map - or so she says. (She also takes talking books to listen to on a long journey instead of reading a book.)
My mental mapping is appalling. I can remember turns but not reliably the distances between them or the order of them. I navigate by reading road signs or by recognising landmarks if I've done the journey before. But my memory has always been poor for details, maybe because I think "why memorise it - why not just look at the book and avoid having to remember it: don't remember the facts, remember where to find them". Consequently I'm now very bad at closed-book exams (I was fine at school, up to A level; something happened when I got to university) though I'm fine if I can have reference books open and if I'm not up against time pressures. It was weird to change almost overnight from being poor at term-time marks but good in exams (school) to being crap in exams but very good when I have reference sources and plenty of time (university and every since).
I could probably draw a reasonable map of the area around where I live, though it would probably be topologically correct but without bends, distances etc - almost like a London Undergound map.
And just a 'phone is what I want, thank you. Although I have sometimes wished it had a camera, but now I keep a the old digital camera in the car anyway, so that's not a problem.
Thank you!
What I really wanted was a basic phone with a decent camera. But to get that (half) decent camera you have to have all the rest.
Although it is convenient to be able to transfer pics from it to any of my PCs without needing to find the correct lead.
Really, you'd need to use one for a while to be certain of that. ;-)
It's like so many of these things - you don't know what you've missed until you've had one.
That is not likely to be true. The satnav knows what the delays are on all the routes unless there are no people using satnavs with live traffic, in which case the satnav didn't divert them.
So there is no problem for you then. Others want a smart phone and use it for stuff other than phone calls.
I was in a similar occupation for 14 years working mostly nationwide. I once worked out that a satnav would have saved me 40 hours per week due to getting hopelessly lost and going the long way round etc. Not to mention wasted fuel and stress. I used to wear maps out. I got my first satnav in 2004 and have never used a map since.
Not quite my problem, but similar. I wanted my existing 'phone but with a camera, but could not see the point of paying £30 for what I already have, with just a camera as extra.
Maybe, that was true of the PVR. But every time I see folks in the pub or restaurant and everywhere else engrossed in their tiny screens and poking at them with their fingers and thumbs, instead of actually talking to people or even looking at the world around them, I renew my hatred of smartphones.
I do some work for the Scouts - such as help out on walks[1] and camping[2] along with general and electrical maintenance at the Scout hut as the gf is a Beaver leader. It is one of the most rewarding parts of my life and it is nice to put back something into a group that I enjoyed and learnt so much from when growing up - I can still trap, skin and cook a rabbit.
[1] Only one group got lost on the midnight walk:-) [2] Last year I did get a bollocking for doing an off-licence run for the Explorers at the district camp.
I don't see many traffic sensors on rural roads. Quarter of a mile away from a 'A' road or town centre and the state of the traffic is likely to be unknown. Couple this with minor junctions that can only just about handle their normal traffic flow and an increase because of diverted traffic causes near grid-lock.
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