Smart Phones with GPS vs Dedicated GPS Receivers

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/technology/08gps.html?em
Will the smart phones win out over the dedicated GPS?
Right now I like my Garmin.

I hope they eventually win. Right now the cell phone manufacturers
haven't paid that much attention to power usage. My Google G1 phone
with GPS on full time drains the phone battery in a matter of 4 hours.
That needs to get better by a factor of ~4 before it is useful for
hiking. The energy stored in the phone's 3.6v x 1.1 Ah battery is
roughly the same as the 1.8Ah x 2.8v that my Garmin 60CSX has. The
Garmin tends to last ~12 hrs on that much energy though.

(* 3.6 1.1) 3.96 Watt-Hours G1 Phone
(* 2.4 1.8) 4.32 Watt-Hours Garmin 60CSX

One big advantage of the G1 is the routing is much, much better quality.
I can't believe how many times the Garmin tried routing me down gated
private dirt roads when out in the boondocks. I've started using the G1
to do the routing and then told the Garmin that the destination was the
next turn that the G1 indicated.

-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and Fedora-11

I like knowing where I am.

Telling Big Brother, Google, and a thousand advertisers and their friends
where I am is a different story.....

--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

Well, in theory the Google version of the cell phone software is open
source so one should be able to patch out any overt spy aspects of the
software. I guess that still leaves the cell tower triangulation but
that is the same issue with any cell phone that has the cell phone radio
powered up.

-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht Android 1.5 (Cupcake) and Fedora-11

Err, I assumed the cell-phone GPS actually off-loads GPS duties to the
MTSO; in other words, if you have no cell service, you have no GPS.
True/False?

And given it's the FBI uder CALEA demanding to know where you are;
don't count on turning it off....



--
A host is a host from coast to coast.................wb8foz@nrk.com
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433