My cell phone goes off contract this spring and it looks like nobody I want to go with next is going to allow me to transfer my old Verizon Galaxy S3  into their system as a BYOP  (each carrier tweeks the guts of the phone to suit their individual systems and can't use somebody else's tweeked set ups).

So, it goes on my handlebars as a GPS unit rather than being a $25 credit for trade in unit.

Most of us are familiar with GPS navigation systems like a Garmin or a Tom Tom.   Android systems are different and quite a few are for free now days.

I have weeded out the free OFF-LINE "map in memory" based android nav systems to the top 4 contenders which are Waze, Navfree, HERE and Mapfactor Navigator.


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Waze also relies on a periodic contact through cell towers, which puts it out of the running for mountain trips.

Waze has just been bought by Google for one billion 600 million dollars.  Must be some really neat stuff, right?    And it is, if you are into social contact while you are driving, spotting speed traps automatically, seeing and avoiding traffic jams and wrecks before you get into them and having a SMART system automatically re-route you to avoid all that nasty bad stuff then Waze is what you want to use.   After all, Google didn't just spend a billion six because it wasn't neat nifty neat and ground breaking stuff.   If you live in a big city, Waze is super neat stuff for the urban dweller.  

Waze loses out in my evaluations because (1) it is too feature filled and gimmicky to appeal to me and (2) the maps lack currency and detail -- they do not show the paved section of Hwy 32 that is over two years old now.    

If I visited Washington DC or another major city I would use Waze to get around while I was there.  Wazes takes over half a gig to download, but it will default to your main memory automatically if there is room.   Waze will stay on my phone for big city trip uses.

I also expect Google to come out with a future Waze release that uses a Google Maps basis which will be free, totally detail current, and be totally usable sometimes out in the future.  However, I fear that Waze may lose their "stored maps" basis at that time and go to a "wireless Google contact" basis at that point in time.   If this happens, Waze will become unusable as a mountain blackliner as you got no cell phone reception up where the air is thin.


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Navfree is a freebee version of an old "buy me" program that uses Tom Tom maps --- the download for the USA maps are nearly 3 gigs in size and must go on the SD card that I hope your phone has.

Navfree FAILS for being ANCIENT, bloated and ineffective.  It is structured like a Tom Tom and that is good as it is familiar enough, but bad because the maps lack fine detail, use state road names instead of what is posted on the street signs and it does not even show the smaller mountain roads.   Navfree is a total bust, and has no potential use unless I was driving interstates across the country.   It has all the general low detail maps for the entire country, but it couldn't find MM's place because I don't know the state road name for his street (and it is too small of a road to show up anyway).   Hwy 32 doesn't exist on Navfree.   Frickn' useless to me.  None of the android pinch and zoom and such works on this product at all -- ya got on-screen buttons to push to do the resizing though it will follow your finger around for the main view location.


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Mapfactor Navigator



http://navigatorfree.mapfactor.com/en/

This is a commercial delivery truck/car payme product with a free version that tries to trap you into upgrading "in app" to get to some "advanced features" that you decide after the fact that you need.  Heck, I don't need any of the advanced features, so they will never get any money from me for stuff I do not need.

How long it continues to have the free front end, I do not know, there has been no mention of an ending time so far.  

Maps are downloaded by state, so it rests much smaller on your phone than the other products.   Because it is a current pay me based product the maps are all current, fully detailed and use the posted correct street names.   It not only shows Hwy 32, it shows the Waterplant Road and the little dirt roads that come off of these same "too small for Tom Tom" sorts of little blackline roads.    This is the ONLY FREE PRODUCT that fills the bill for mountain black lining.

Structure is good and simple and you can tell the thing was BUILT from the get to for an android phone as the pinch and zoom stuff is how it works naturally.  

You can download new maps for new states from within the program although it starts asking you for money after your 10th map download and I understand that map upgrades in a few years cost money too.    You'll have a new phone by then, so just download it again for free.   Or delete it and reload it if you have the same phone.

My advice is that you download all the maps you are likely going to need when you install the app.  It is the very best functionally out of the free lot, it meets all the needs for a motorcycle handlebar GPS as well as any product out there, free or not free.


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So far, I have discovered Mapfactor Navigator for mountain black lining use and Waze for my wifey city trips.   Both of them store all maps on the phone and require no cell phone connection.   Both will likely still continue to work when my Verizon service ends in April.  I feel that using the old phone on my bike's handlebars is now perfectly feasible, just as long as the phone can access the stored maps and apps and receive the GPS satellite signals with the phone's internal hardware.

I look forward to Google/Waze becoming much more detailed and better over time, such that it can do the whole job by itself .... and I can always count on the Google/Waze product remaining totally free as it does it.

This review was done in October, 2014 and it will be out of date and totally stale and useless by 2016.

There isn't anybody "local" to our favorite sets of little bitty mountain ditties -- so Waze will never be "updated by users to" show those little ditties correctly.

Google will fix her, get her off the Foss Open Maps architecture and plug all them neat Waze tricks into a totally current and good Google maps basis.

Wonder how big she will sit on the SD then .....        Hope she still stays a local map / local memory loaded program that just catches them instant updates for hazards and wrecks and stuff.

"It is being said" that the Samsung Galaxy 3 phones will continue to operate using pre-installed "on phone" programs and locally stored maps, with the GPS hardware working off the relatively recent android 4.x system using the locally installed programs and maps.

What happens when the plan ends has changed some with the recent legal requirements that an "off plan" phone still has to be able to ping anybody's tower and still has to be able to make a 911 call -- your Obama Administration at work for you there.  

Plus the Samsung Galaxy S3 has an in phone GPS reading capability based off its own hardware, it can still see the signals from the satellites.   Android keeps most of its own capabilities now days, apart from the carrier's software additions.

Plus if an old carrier wiped your "out of plan" phone you'd sue them now-a-days, especially since you can BYOP to a new carrier and hook it all up again and have your old set up running again on a new carrier.

We shall see  ----  in April, 2015.

It is important to get your off-line capable, "maps stored in local memory" navigation app properly installed and working properly before you go off your plan though.

OR, GPS is a separate radio receiver integrated into the phone. Most of the time these days, it is actually built into the phone chip as well but it's still a separate receiver in the same chip housing.


The rub comes in with the maps and stuff like that.  You have to make sure you pre-download over wi-fi or cell data whatever maps you will need or you'll get some sort of goofy message about out of area or no map data or something similar.

GPS is tuned to get signals from the sattelite system encircling the planet to provide location information. You can be way out in the sticks where they have never even heard of a cell phone and the GPS will still work.

When cell service is discontinued, it does nothing to your phone. Everything still works just as it always has, it's just that nobody on the cell tower will accept a call from your phone since its serial # doesn't have a valid account.  It will still try to make the call.  The towers just turn it down when they check for an account. This situation can tend to run your battery down very quickly since the phone will keep pinging towers trying to obtain service from somebody.

There is an app on the play store called "Cell Radio Shutoff" that will turn off the cell radio and leave everything else fully functional. This will give you decent battery life while bluetooth and wifi are still working.

Well, the old HTC Eris won't even come online without a chip (destroyed the cell card so it could not be used)
But the HTC Thunderbolt that I replaced it with still works, music, camera, 911, but the gps part is set up for google... so I will have to log onto the wireless and see what I can do to get it to work stand-alone.
As it is now, without the Wi-Fi on it just sits and spins the little donut "wait" circle.
It does have stand alone for gps and I can turn off blue tooth, Wi-Fi and turn on the gps, but the "navigation" blue arrow takes me to navigation, but the map itself will not show up, because it uses google to do it. Guess i'll have to find a stand alone program and down load it.

Looked around, thought I would try Osmand.... lets you download ten free maps..... so I did these:
World base map (did it automatically could not stop it)
Florida
Alabama
Georgia
Kentucky
Tennessee
North Carolina
Illinois
Missouri

I have one more, did not know if I should do Louisiana or Kansas (have relatives near KC)
Still downloading while online Wi-Fi, soon as they are done I will see what happens....

From what I understand I can use the maps offline, but if I want full services I would have to pay.... going to read into it a bit more.
I can always dump it....

https://www.here.com/app/en/?L=1


We have a brand new entry into the stored map GPS crew that looks to possibly be usable.

HERE from Nokia (from the stub of Nokia that was not bought out by MS).

The totally free HERE beta is very very nice and the maps are relatively small and will store local on your phone itself.  

How long it all stays free, I dunno, but they aren't pressing for any in app purchases at this point in time.

Interface is totally modern Android and it is very very simple and well thought out.



NOTE FROM THE FUTURE:   HERE doesn't work out because it wants a constant cell or wifi signal.

Food for thought OldFeller used Galaxy S3's for Verizon are selling on EBAY for between $100 and $150, you may benefit from selling it and getting yourself a used GPS unit that you can update and have live GPS feed from. Walmart,  Gazelle and most local walk in cell phone places will offer you between $25 and $50 because they have to resell it with a warranty.