are handheld gps maps / pda bolt ons any real use?

[kotatsuneko]

at some point in the future, am seriously considering "doing an Alan" (thought about it for years really)

was wondering are gps thingys any real use? have never seen one working.. any thoughts?

[samuraiwig]

Didn't Alan navigate using the stars and bars...but mostly bars

If you're really going to 'do one' you're probably best off setting aside more time than you think you'll actually need and carrying a road atlas. GPS seems a rather soulless way to go.

[Taro Toporific]

was wondering are gps thingys any real use? have never seen one working.. any thoughts?

Getting "turning around" will be the most fun.
I spent my finest summer in northern and eastern Europe with nothing but a small dictionary map of Europe----just navagating to the next town by asking farm girls and following road signs.

[Charles]

I don't understand the question, do you want a car navi, or a GPS for walking around and finding street addresses? They seem to be totally different gadgets.

A few months back, a FG friend of mine rented a car with the latest and greatest car navi, and took me along on a trip from Shinjuku up to Nikko, it was really cool. I'd never seen a car navi in use before, I was fascinated. The other passengers (his parents on a visit from the US) could not speak Japanese and found the repeated voice warnings extremely annoying. But I thought it was unobtrusive and allowed you to keep your eyes on the road. Maybe I've just gotten used to repetitive mechanical announcements from riding on trains. Anyway, I'd definitely get a car navi if I had to drive around Japan.

But you might want to hold off a bit on a handheld GPS gadgets for local navigation. I hear that GPS functions are being implemented into cel phones. I saw a little video about this on FujiTV a few weeks back, it looked like the best cel phone app I'd ever seen. Apparently it doesn't truly use GPS, it uses triangulation between cel towers, which is accurate enough. You can get car navi-like functions, it tells you which way to go and where to turn, and can guide you to any point on the map. I think they're designed to integrate with web-like functions in cel phones, you can look up a place on the phone browser and then it will lead you there, it can even work out your subway norikae. But I think these phones were just prototypes, they may not be on the market yet. If they are available, I definitely want one on my next trip over.

[Pencilslave]

[quote="&quot"]Didn't Alan navigate using the stars and bars...but mostly bars

Please forgive the off topic question, but who's the Alan you guys are talking about?