gps recommendations?

[David Rysdam]

On Sat, 18 May 2013 14:03:23 -0400, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org> wrote:
> On 05/18/2013 01:46 PM, David Rysdam wrote:
> > On Sat, 18 May 2013 11:49:21 -0400, Joshua Judson Rosen <rozzin at geekspace.com> wrote:
> >> David Rysdam <david at rysdam.org> writes:
> >>> Helpfully unhelpful: But maybe what this proves is that no GPS has ever
> >>> heard "it's the journey, not the destination".
> >> I think the point of Tilmann's notes in the FoxtrotGPS manual is that
> >> `the vertices *are* the edges', e.g.:
> >>
> >>      * Do not set your waypoints on crossings. Instead, set them on the
> >>        road between crossings.
> > I saw that. It's possible that it might function the way you suspect in
> > some cases. However, having had some inexplicable (and some
> > explicable-by-positing-the-GPS-is-dumb) experiences, I suspect what
> > would frequently happen is a route that did NOT include that edge,
> > except for the one point I happened to stick on there. I.e.
> >
> > 1) a completely unexpected route
> > 2) get on an entrance ramp to My Chosen Highway
> > 3) drive past the point
> > 4) take the next exit
> > 5) continue on with GPS's idea of what I want
> >
> > This is "easily" solvable by putting more points on My Chosen
> > Highway...for someone with infinite patience in trying to trick software
> > into doing the right thing. From the volume of responses I've gotten
> > telling me about wayPOINTS, routePOINTS, and POINTS-of-interest, I must
> > be the only one who wants a feature that lets me input *lines*.
> >
> You can to that with Google Maps. I'm not sure exactly what you want to 
> do, but it is much more flexible than the standard GPS.

Yeah, at one point I was going to say "What I want is Google Maps, but
in portable form". That's not exactly true, but closer than what I have
now. Maybe I need to get an smartphone. But it seems like if this
functionality can exist in a phone, it can exist in a GPS. Or maybe the
crucial factor is the internet access, in which case a smartphone
wouldn't help me either (since I wouldn't always be in a coverage area).