HikeArizona.COM

This unit is on sale @Costco through today only. (9-11-2020) Would like to know thoughts from members on the pros and cons of this model vs the s and st version.
I know the GB is 4 vs 8 which shouldn't matter for our day hikes but I don't understand the map differences and subscription details or even if they are needed for what we do. Thanks in advance for your time and responses. Sincerely, The Determined Luddites

@joebartels Verbally ...

Hansenaz wrote:I know that a cheap Android phone could do the same (and more), but I'd like to understand the travails of the transition.

Dang, I wish I had thought of that line "travails of transition" as it sounds much more positive than my being just "resistant to change"

I actually use both Garmin "BaseCamp" and HAZ "Route Cloud" and pretty much duplicate route efforts and storage on both. As a mater of fact, I'm almost sure that I'm one of JBs better customers on HAZ "Route Cloud" as I'm convinced that he finally started charging me yearly for the storage space I take up

PS for: @AZClaimjumper -
Just to clarify that I have attempted to join our 21st century. I have owned a smartphone now since April'15 and would no longer want to be without it, but I just don't use it for following/navigating my wilderness hiking routes.

@Grasshopper
My sentiments exactly. I have absolutely no need/wish/desire for a so-called Smart Phone. When I'm out hiking/geocaching I want a Satellite telling me where I am, not a cell phone tower.
No Cell phone & going for a hike or geocaches by myself is the ultimate Social Distancing.

Route Scout is far superior to any handheld GPS and there really isn’t any learning curve that I recall when I started using it. A few features I really like are the ability to import and export a route directly, no need to connect to some computer anchor, and the announcements of upcoming waypoints, I’ve set up waypoints on a route to where I didn’t even need to glance at my screen, just by naming my waypoints with direction giving names, ie “Left turn at the large rock outcropping”, which saves on battery life, and is fun to see how good you can set up meaningful waypoints. Setting the options how you prefer takes a trip or two but once set you really don’t need to fiddle with them again.

@Grasshopper
I understand. I guess I'm just hopelessly wandering around in the dark ages in terms of electronic devices. However, I do have & enjoy the use of indoor plumbing inside the bunker & a manual tranny in my vehicle.

@AZClaimjumper
I am a little bit confused about the post about having to rely on a cell phone tower. Put your phone on airplane mode and it uses GPS only - this also saves the battery. You can put it in this mode and at the end of a morning to night hiking day if you don't use the screen or record anything your battery will still be near 100%. Maybe you know this but your comment made it sound otherwise. Anyway I've learned over the years that a great number of people have no idea their phone can be used for mapping & GPS offline without cell service so maybe this will be helpful to some:

Smart phones specifically utilize GPS, since their inception. Though I am not aware of any that utilize Glonass or Galileo. But that has not been a problem for me. Nearly all mapping programs I use (about 5 of them at any one time including Route Scout) have some form of offline option. I have been using smart phones on airplane mode for offline backcountry navigation since 2011. they all record your position in GPS fine.

Except for battery life and screen breakage susceptibility my experience using this method has been far superior to any Garmin GPS. Of which I carry two in addition to the phone (an InReach and a GPS watch with mapping). The phone is just a lot more convenient, being pocketable, and a lot more usable for navigation with a big screen.

My issue with a unit like the GPSMap64 or really any other standalone GPS is how poor the screens are and the most rugged ones have these little direction buttons where you scroll around painfully slow like it's still 2001. The touch screen ones are hardly responsive - they end up wasting a lot of my time when the sun is sinking. They are low resolution and it is a pain to put maps on them that are anything except what Garmin provides - which are overpriced to begin with and frequently out of date with how quickly trails change after every fire season. I think I used my Inreach all of one time for navigation before I decided it was both inaccurate and cumbersome. It's just a heavy satellite communicator now.

To supplement the aforementioned phone issues, I use a battery case that is good for 1.5 recharges, with a pass-thru connector that allows easy recharge through a USB power bank and/or solar, and a gorilla glass screen protector. I dropped it off a cliff once about 20 ft into a little slot in the Gulch in Utah (My fault for filming in a technical section). Had to get in there and find it. Screen was still intact. After a certain year, most smartphones are also now as waterproof as a Garmin. I can drop my XS in a creek and it will be fine - just has to dry out before it can charge again.

In 2019 I spent 5 days in Canyonlands NP without access to the grid. Using the same phone I took 320 gigabytes of raw 4k 100mbps footage for a youtube video while also using the same phone for offline GPS navigation. If one app didn't have the trails I was looking for, another one did. Using the battery case I was able to keep the phone alive through all of this work for more than 8 hours a day on trail. Worked great for this purpose.

Sorry if I diverged a bit but I am passionate about my navigation devices and I like to save people money if they realize the device they already own is superior anyway.

@wildwesthikes
InReach has been a turn off for MEeee from the get-go simply because the battery can't be replaced by the user.
Admittedly, I'm wallowing around in the dark ages with my ancient 62ST & am not willing to go through the travails of transition with a so-called SMART phone. My 4G Flip phone isn't even with me when I leave the trailhead.

@wildwesthikes
Modern smartphones (iPhone, Samsung Galaxy) have for the past 2-3 years included support for GNSS reception, which includes GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, Beidou, and a number of other satellite constellations. More importantly, they allow for dual-frequency reception which provides excellent error correction and can triangulate a location to near 12 inches (vs ~15 feet). Whether the map app you use takes advantage of that when available is a question that I don't know how to answer.

@AZClaimjumper
Ah gotcha that makes more sense then. I admit it sounds nice to have the simplicity of a flip phone again.
If only there were a market for flip phones and a GPS all in one! Like imagine an InReach with good mapping AND a cellular chip in it.
One device to rule them all... and in the canyons, bind them!

That is nice to learn about a smart phone that I did not know. My phone is definitely in some aspects smarter than me. I still find all the screens on phones, etc too small and too fiddly to navigate on. I still have trouble sometimes with "fat finger" just unlocking the thing.
So, if I need a map it's a paper one for me. In the field I have a laptop that is offline loaded with Nat Geo TOPO's multiple states, and I have a portable printer if I need to print it out. The laptop is an el cheapo decommissioned medical "tough" tablet that doesn't mind being jostled about in a 4wd vehicle. But I only take that with if I am far away from home and deviate from my planned and prepared routes ( happens pretty often actually).

@chumley
@LosDosSloFolks
I am having issues with my iPhone, so I bought the phone recommended by Todd. I used it today. Works quite well. $129+ after tax at Best Buy.