Gadget's Guide to Selecting a Smartphone for Long Distance Hiking
by Gadget (PCT '08)
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Intro
In the world of light and ultra-light backpacking, an important strategy is to get dual use out of items carried. My sleeping pad is also the back
padding for my backpack, dental floss can be used as thread, etc. Perhaps the ultimate in multi-use gear is a smartphone, if a person takes
care to select the right item, and spends some upfront time to learn how to use the key features.
A smartphone can serve you as a phone (of course), as a camera, GPS, journal, internet access, book reader, voice recorder, MP3 player, and probably
other things as well. While no one of these features is (or should be) critical to the success and safety of a backpacking trip, in aggregate these
wrap a lot of nice functionality into one small package.
But there are a lot of potential gotcha's. I thru-hiked the Pacific Crest Trail in 2008 using a smartphone in a number of ways (and hence my trailname,
"Gadget"), and learned some things built into the suggestions below. I don't believe you have to be a computer wizard to use one of these, but some
upfront time & effort --- and of course money --- will be involved.
Note that while some examples of hardware or software might be referenced in the below, this document is in no way intended to recommend specific
hardware or software. Technology moves fast, and what might seem an ideal choice today might be superceded by a better option a month from now, and
specific "how to" details are always subject to (sometimes rapid) change. However, I hope that the general ideas, suggestions, and warnings
will help you avoid some pitfalls.
If you see anything wrong in this document, or have suggestions of ways to make it better, please send details to brianle8 <at> gmail <dot>
com. I don't promise to incorporate every (or even any) suggested changes or additions, but I do promise to consider them all!
List of Uses
I tersely listed the uses of such a device in the intro above, but let's expand on these a bit:
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Phone:
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When in range of a cell tower, a phone can be tremendously helpful in coordinating to meet with people or get a ride (to include perhaps a taxi
or shuttle), to letting loved ones know that you're okay, to ask for someone at home to mail you something you need, and of course just for all the benefits of being in voice contact with someone that you care about.
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As cell phones become more common, pay phones are becoming harder to find.
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Picking the right carrier can make all the difference between a sometimes-useful phone device, and an item that's just useless weight on the
trail.
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cell carriers build in an answering service so even if the person you want to communicate with isn't home at the time you're in range of a cell
tower, you can still pass messages via phone-tag
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I've seen reports that we might someday be able to purchase a "smart" satellite phone, perhaps something that combines an existing smartphone
set of features with satellite coverage. If not too expensive and sufficiently reliable, this could be great.
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Internet
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The addition of internet capability is potentially very useful. You can get email, trail reports, search for information about, say, a fire you
heard is burning ahead of you on the trail. You can connect with equipment manufacturers and order gear. Two particularly important uses for me
were getting weather reports for areas I was headed towards (postholer.com trail-specific and mobile-friendly weather reports were great for this), and for uploading entries to my trail journal.
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Depending on the quality (bandwidth, speed) of your internet service, you can perhaps also email home pictures, or post them to an online site
such as Flikr or to your trail journal.
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For my PCT thru-hike, I typed up a trail journal entry for literally every day, and would post these --- along with a picture for the majority of them ---
whenever I was in range of a cell tower (this, in fact, is what got me my trail name ...).
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Camera
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Cell phone cameras are renowned for how limited they are. They're getting better, but in general still lack functionality that even low-end digital cameras have.
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The camera built into my smartphone is a 2 megapixel camera with no true zoom, limited features, and it can be a bit slow.
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On the other hand, when I take pictures with this device they're ready to directly upload via my internet connection without having to somehow
transfer them first. Better yet, the default photo resolution of my 2 megapixel camera results in photo file sizes big enough to show a lot of detail and yet small enough to upload directly --- without having to manipulate the photo to get a size more suitable to internet use.
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It's a matter of what's important to you; for my trip, I felt my photos were "good enough" for shots of still scenery and of people.
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What it likely won't do well anytime soon is provide wide panoramas, high resolution, telescopic zoom, or a host of features that more high-end
cameras offer
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I believe that over time some additional features and quality level more common to a basic point-and-shoot camera will be built in, perhaps with the exception of the zoom.
There are today smartphones with better megapixel resolution than mine has.
For many people (and for the most part for me), that will be good enough; real
camera buffs will carry something bigger and better and hopefully know how to use it!
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Book Reader
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This is actually useful in multiple ways.
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I carried a "library" with me of eBooks, mostly Science Fiction, mind candy stuff, something like 50 books; some that I purchased, and some freely available. The free
library at www.baen.com was a good source, as was Project Gutenberg. This "library" was useful on occasion in camp or in a hotel room, though more the latter --- time, fatigue, and my limited power budget kept me from
reading much in camp.
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I also carried two different types of wilderness first aid books. A person could carry plant and animal identification books in electronic form, trail and trail-town information. For my 2010 Appalachian Trail thru-hike attempt, I'll carry the freely available Adobe Acrobat (pdf) version of the "AT Companion", saving weight over equivalent information that I carried in paper form on the PCT in 2008.
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Related, of course, is that these devices have a mobile operating system
that typically offers applications such as spreadsheets, word processing, etc. With some advance work, I put on my device the electronic
manuals for much of the backpacking equipment I carried (I can never remember all the various modes of my altitimeter-watch). I had available
to me the addresses of post offices, phone numbers for motels, etc etc.
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MP3
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As an MP3 player, a smartphone offers really two distinct types of functionality:
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GPS
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See below
for expansion on this topic, but for a person that has spent a little learning time and has the requisite software, this can be quite useful.
In my time in the Army I had map reading pounded into me pretty well, yet I nevertheless found it just faster, easier to find the trail again
on multiple occasions when it just sort of seemed to peter out or otherwise was obscure. This can be particularly useful in snow (which set of
footsteps are the right ones to follow?) or low visibility situations --- whiteout, night hiking. Ditto in cases closer to "civilization" where
there are unsigned trail junctions and it's unclear which is the trail that you want to follow.
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Purchase Guidelines and Suggestions
Below are some suggestions of things to think about before you buy a device:
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Which Carrier do you want to go with?
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As of 2008, the clear consensus among thru-hikers was that AT&T and Verizon are the ones to go with for better coverage outside of cities on the PCT. T-Mobile and Sprint seem to focus
more on major population centers, and not on more rural or even less populated areas.
I speculate that the same is true on the Continental Divide Trail (CDT), but haven't investigated. On the Appalachian Trail it's less clear that one is better than the other, as there are a lot more ~urban areas close to the trail.
No provider is always going to be the best in all areas. Note that most if not all of these carriers offer online coverage maps, typically you enter a zip
code and they show you what, if any coverage they offer there. Enter zip codes for various points on or near the trail in question can give you a sense for the sort of coverage you might get.
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A related issue is the underlying communication standard. AT&T uses the more internationally common GSM standard, Verizon uses the CDMA
standard that's limited to the U.S. This was important to me, as at the time I purchased my smartphone, the only model I could find that met
all of my other criteria was a GSM phone, so I went with AT&T. Unless you want a phone that you can take with you overseas, however, it's not likely to be a deciding factor for you.
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Another key factor about choosing a carrier are the contract options available, including nuances that might not be obvious. For example, I
initially started with AT&T via their "pay-as-you-go" plan, with no contract. But I later stumbled upon the fact that their advertised
coverage map is only for their contract customers, so I ultimately switched to a contract prior to my long hike. On the plus side, I was really
pleased with AT&T's internet plan, which actually dropped in price after I started using it for unlimited internet useage.
For my Appalachian Trail trip in 2010, I'll stick with AT&T, but this time on their no-contract plan, with by-the-month internet time purchased separately. It can be difficult to understand the nuances of plan options by the various carriers.
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Finally, a key thing in picking a carrier is to look at the particular phones that they offer bundled with a new contract. At the time I picked
my phone, none of the carriers offered anything that I considered good enough, but that was in 2007 and technology moves quickly. I ended up
paying full price for my phone; if a carrier offers a phone that has an acceptable feature mix for you (factoring in various suggestions and
issues below), you can likely save a lot of money going that route. From a hasty look at offerings in late 2008, I'm pretty sure that if I were
shopping for a "smartphone for the long trail" now that I would opt for one offered by AT&T or Verizon as part of a contract --- as this
would likely save a lot of money, assuming you're okay with binding yourself to a contract.
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Read Reviews; you don't need the absolute latest thing
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Hopefully I won't insult your intelligence with the suggestion that you look for independent reviews of the smartphone you're considering, whether
via a Mobile-device oriented magazine (check bigger bookstores like Barnes and Noble), and/or online venues such as www.cnet.com, www.engadgetmobile.com, etc. In general,
searching via a search engine like www.google.com for a particular phone model number will turn up some
reviews. Consumer Reports at your local library might also be a good option, though less likely perhaps to cover the most recently available
offerings.
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Related to this is that if you're going to wait for reviews, you're not likely to want to buy the latest sexiest model phone the day it becomes
available.
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Also related, I strongly suggest that you buy your smartphone literally months (or at least a month) in advance of your long trip, so
that you have time to try out various features, ideally in training hikes in as close approximation as possible to how you envision using it.
There's a definite learning curve to being able to confidently make full use of the various features.
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Camera
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On my particular device there are a couple of things that annoy me about my camera --- which is one of the most common applications I use!
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The camera "application" is a selfish one; when I turn the camera on (via a dedicated button on the smartphone), it takes over, and the
only way to use any other functionality is to turn the camera off, and then turn it on again when I want to take another picture.
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Aggrevating this is the fact that I have no way to set defaults for the camera, each time I turn it on it resets to factory defaults. For
the most part this is fine, but it defaults to taking rather tall and not-too-wide photos, whereas I prefer to turn the camera sideways and
take photos that are wider than tall. Unless I push on-screen buttons (and typically wait a while to do so), pictures taken like this show
up sideways when later viewed.
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I've actually been satisfied with the resolution of this 2 megapixel camera, recognizing that I'm not going for award-winning stunningly
detailed photos, but just a manageable visual record that I can share.
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A related issue is storage memory.
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While this will hopefully change (somewhat ...) over time, cell phone cameras lack some key features of stand-alone digital cameras, including a true
zoom ("digital" zoom does not add any additional detail to the photo, it just limits the field of view and expands it) and a flash.
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Storage Memory
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My particular phone has a pretty pathetically small amount of internal storage memory, but it allows the use of a microSD card. My device is limited to a 2 Gigabyte card, which might or might not be enough for you, depending on what you're doing with it. The things that particularly take up space for me are:
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Maps for use with the GPS
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MP3 music or audiobooks
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Photos
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I was partially saved in this regard in that as my trip progressed, I deleted map data which freed up room for more photos.
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So one thing to check is the type of removeable storage supported (such as a microSD card) and what maximum card size is supported by the phone you're considering.
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The internal storage memory can be significant too, as some applications will require some internal (built-in) storage space. If you try to
load a lot of applications on your device, too-limited internal storage could be a problem.
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GPS
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The key point here is that you want a "true" GPS.
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Be careful here; many smartphones advertise that they offer GPS functionality, but the way they operate is that they need to be in range of
a cell tower (and maybe more than one) for this to work. Hiking in the backcountry, this is pretty much useless to you.
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You want a true GPS built into the device. As of this writing, in 2008, I suggest that you look for one that uses the SiRF Star III
chipset, though I'm sure that this will be superceded at some point. There are other standards out there; one I noticed recently is the
Qualcomm MSM7200 gpsOne. I don't know how well or if this would work with backcountry GPS software, but I would guess that it would. I do
know that SiRF Star III works well even under tree cover.
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It can be tough to tell for certain if a particular device has a true GPS; for example, the term A-GPS means "assisted GPS", and can mean that your device must be in range
of a cell tower to function, or it could mean that it will simply startup faster if in range of a cell tower but still work fine
if not. Another term that might mean you have a true GPS is "built-in GPS receiver". But ultimately, you're better off looking at
the GPS chipset listed on a spec sheet if you can find that.
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You also need software, which might or might not include maps. Since I already owned National Geographic Topo maps, I bought their "PocketTopo"
product for use on the PCT, which works well enough but is somewhat slow and buggy in my opinion. For my Appalachian Trail trip I'm switching to Memory-Map software and freely available USGS maps.
For a comparison of these two options, see Appendix I. Some related "which software is best" discussion is also available for iPhone users in Appendix II.
There are of course other options; it's beyond the scope of this
document to try to list every possibility. But in general, there are a couple of alternative approaches to using a GPS:
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Map data is right on the GPS, so you see your location on a map that's displayed on your smartphone screen, and ideally with your trail
shown as well
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Carry paper maps with a coordinate system grid (I recommend UTM), and just read the coordinate numbers on the GPS to relate those to where
you are on the paper map.
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Not to sermonize, but I personally feel that it's important that a person carry paper maps on most trails regardless, as well as a compass, and have
experience at using these. The device can break, you could lose it, your battery could be dead --- and you don't want to end up lost as a result.
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MP3 player
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Despite all my praise for the multi-use smartphone approach, I ultimately ended up carrying a separate, standalone MP3 player. Why?
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The storage issue: Limited to 2 GB for everything, I found it too limited to put on the amount and quality
(compression level) of music and audiobooks that I wanted.
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Power: You have a limited power budget for doing all the various things you want to use the device
for. By carrying a separate MP3 player, I never had a conflict there, and I conserved smartphone power for more important (or at least
"other") uses.
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DRM: Digital Rights Management. This was the straw that broke the MP3
camel's back for me. Most sources of audiobooks only support devices that in turn support the DRM standard. My smartphone did not. I bought
my audiobooks via www.audible.com, and ultimately selected a very small and light 2 GB MP3 player
that did support DRM, one that ran off of a single AAA battery. I would hope that in future, at least, this issue will be resolved, but who
knows.
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A weird limitation that my particular device has is that I can only hear stereo through the earbuds supplied with the device --- and I
hated wearing those. Using off-the-shelf earphones, I only heard mono, in one ear only. I don't know why, and suspect this isn't a common
problem, but it's another reason I went with a separate MP3 player.
As an aside, the earphones I personally like best are the type that hook behind your ears; I don't find that the "earbud" types will stay
securely in when I'm walking. I also like to have a volume control on the earphone cord so I don't have to access the device itself for that.
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Voice Recorder
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One feature I use quite a bit is the voice recorder. I'll typically make a note, perhaps even while I'm walking, about something I want to do
at my next town stop. It's very convenient.
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A key point here is how easy (or hard) it is to activate. On my device I just push and hold a particular button (physical button
on the device body) and I'm in voice recorder mode. If instead I had to navigate through various menus each time I wanted to make a voice
recording, I'd likely not bother.
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Power "Budget"
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A very key issue is having sufficient battery power to do all the things you want with the device. Some things are more discretionary --- I can
live without reading a book at night (though if I'm reading at night I can lower the light level intensity which reduces power
consumption). But if I want to take a picture, then I want to take the bloody picture and not worry about whether I have the battery power to do
so! If I want a GPS fix, I don't want to have to worry if I have enough power to do that.
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One thing that I strongly recommend is that you select a device that has a removeable battery, so you can buy and bring along one or more
spares. The original Apple iPhone came out around the time I was looking at options, and I crossed it off my list for this reason alone (the original iPhone also didn't have a true GPS).
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In order to power your device on the trail, you might consider a solar charger. I used a Solio charger that
I bought at REI, and it worked well enough, but I always felt like I was on a limited power budget. Of course, a solar charger is a more
credible option when hiking in Southern California (where my trip started) than in sometimes cloudier and farther north (latitude)
WashingtonState, where the trip ended. In fact, I ultimately decided to not carry the solar charger in Washington, and if doing it again I'd
skip it in the northern part of Oregon too --- too much of the time is spent walking under tree cover. Instead, I just carried more spare
batteries as well as the charging cord, and recharged in towns whenever I had the opportunity. More than once I found that if I asked at a
little store I was stopped at, they would plug my phone in for me while I resupplied and ate a meal, etc.
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Power connector: I ran into people that had purchased the same solar charger that I had, but they found that they couldn't obtain a power "tip"
compatible with the device they wanted to charge, or in one case, the device simply refused to be charged by anything but its native charging
cord. My device uses the very common "mini-USB" connector; it's helpful to have a fairly common standard, rather than something unique to a
particular manufacturer.
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Extended batteries: For my Appalachian Trail trip, I don't anticipate enough continuous sunshine to make a solar charger credible, so I've purchased "extended" batteries for my phone. These are physically thicker (and heavier) batteries --- they include a replacement plastic back plate for my phone to allow the thicker battery to fit. In recharging my phone, I don't want to have to babysit it and change batteries too often while in town; a bigger battery means I get more charge each time I physically connect my charger (and go to sleep or into town to shop or whatever). I'm also hoping that with a bigger battery I'll have a better ratio of "useable charge" per weight of batteries carried. When my phone gets down to reporting 30% to 40% charge left on a standard battery I know that in fact I don't have much time left at all before it starts to give me annoying low power alerts and then ultimatly shut itself down.
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A charging cord is worth carrying if you expect to stop often enough in places that allow you to recharge, such as motels or hostels. I initially carried the power
cord for the solar charger --- my solar charger has a built-in battery, and I carried one spare smartphone battery, so in effect I had three
batteries. It was still a bit of a pain at times, but workable with experience. Ultimately I found it better to carry the charging cord for the phone itself, but with purchase of assessories I in fact had a couple of charging cords that would work and one was substantially lighter weight than the other.
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It's worth learning which functions take the most power. Talking on the cell phone takes a lot because you're broadcasting. Using the GPS can
take a fair bit, ditto wi-fi and bluetooth useage. When I'm done using any such functions I take care to explicitly make sure that they're off, to limit
power drain.
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One sort of weird problem I had was that an aftermarket battery I bought as a spare was made by another company and didn't quite fit
with as tight a tolerance as the original battery. The result is that if the device gets shaken a little or dropped a couple of inches it will literally reboot (cold), whereas with the original battery it's fine. With the extended batteries I bought and related back plate replacement this doesn't seem to be a problem. What is a problem is a lot of extra fiddling to get that replacement back plate to close properly.
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Durability; dirt, dust, moisture resistance
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There are devices available that are "ruggedized", that can survive a drop of X feet and/or are dust or moisture resistant. Such options might
be a bit heavier, and don't offer much selection in terms of other functionality.
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I opted to get a device that's not particularly "tough". In wet weather I put it inside a snack-sized ziplock bag; the GPS works fine that way,
I have to remove it to use the camera or make a voice recording.
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I also purchased a different carrying case for it, one made of a sort of neoprene foam. This connects directly to the shoulder strap on my
backpack, so the device is always readily available for taking pictures, voice recording, or as a GPS. One nice thing about the neoprene carrying case is that when the thickness of my phone changed with the extended (thicker) battery, the phone still fits fine in this case --- it wouldn't have if I were using a custom "just fits" type of case.
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Keyboard
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This might or might not be important to you, but for me, having a good keyboard was important for writing up my journal daily, and for email.
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My particular device has a built-in sliding "thumbs" keyboard, and I don't use it. I would have been better off buying the slightly lighter and
less expensive alternate model of my device that omits the slide-out keyboard. What I did instead was to purchase a separate wireless
(bluetooth) folding keyboard that's close to a "full sized" keyboard. I can touch type with this keyboard, and in fact much of this document
was written during breaks on my PCT trip using that keyboard on my smartphone. My particular keyboard weighs, I think something like 6 - 7 oz, uses
two AAA batteries, and is branded "Think Outside", also known as the Stowaway Universal Bluetooth Keyboard. It's worked well. It
folds pretty small; for safe & dry storage I wrap a little bubble wrap around it and put that into a quart sized ziplock bag and have had
no trouble with it.
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Software, Operating System
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A smartphone (at least in my own personal terminology) is basically a cell phone added to
a PDA with some additional functionality. The "PDA" (Personal Digital Assistant) portion is
something you can just think of as a limited sort of mobile computer, and as such it has an operating system and a person can purchase add-on
software for it, or in many cases download freeware or shareware programs to extend the functionality.
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The available software will depend on the particular operating system used by your smartphone, and possibly by the specific hardware (CPU,
etc). Examples of mobile operating systems are Microsoft's Windows Mobile (which my
device uses), there are mobile Linux implementations,Symbian, Palm, iPhone OS, Blackberry, and others.
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So if there is a specific software application that you know you'll want to use, check out what operating systems it runs on before you select
a smartphone. This is potentially an advantage to going with a fairly popular type of phone, such as the iPhone. While neither of the Topo map software tools I've used work on the iPhone, there are other choices that do, but don't work on the Windows Mobile platform.
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Software that I added to my phone included (note: no recommedations implied, just examples):
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PocketTopo
to add topographic maps that use my GPS chipset (but per previous I've since switched to using Memory-Map Navigator
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TomTom
, street/automobile oriented GPS software, useful for getting to and from the trail, it also has a database of services in towns and phone numbers
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Book reading software --- I selected Mobipocket Reader, but there are other options
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I added a calculator application (freeware) that functions more in a way that I'm used to than the one that came with the phone
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I bought a Sudoku game program, though find that I rarely use it on the trail (!)
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I installed a mobile version of the Adobe Acrobat reader, though where possible I save documents in MS Word format, as Acrobat is a little
tweaky to use on a small device, or at least that's been my experience; for some documents it works great, for others it can be frustrating, depending on the type of content and how it was authored.
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I installed a freeware application that displays on my "today" screen (home page for the device) the sunrise and sunset as well as moonrise
and moonset times for various locations.
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There are certainly more things you might want to consider, such as perhaps photo manipulation software if you're inclined to do that on
your device. Available on-device storage memory might limit how many applications you can install, but there are many possibilities. Bottom
line is that --- like buying a desktop or laptop computer --- think of any software that you feel that you must have and ensure it will
work on your device.
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Some (additional) "Gotcha's" to watch out for
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In my (admittedly limited) experience, these devices periodically get themselves into a state where things are just "not working", and you have
to force a cold reboot of the device. It's worth knowing ahead of time that you can in fact do that. Sometimes for me it just requires poking a
tiny recessed spot on the phone with my stylus and then waiting a while. Less frequently I have to remove the battery and reinsert it; this is
another good reason to have a removeable battery, i.e., to have a last-resort method of forcing the device to restart.
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I do recommend purchasing a screen protector and installing it early on; this is just a thin, transparent plastic film that sticks on top of
your screen to protect it. Unlike with a normal computer, I interact with my smartphone by poking and dragging the stylus across the screen a
lot, plus just being in the gritty, dirty outdoors could cause issues. Best to install a screen protector at the very beginning, while your
screen is still fresh and unscratched.
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Pay attention to where there are external, physical buttons or other controls on the device.
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The camera button on mine is in a somewhat odd place, so if I want someone to take my picture with my "camera", it always takes an extra
moment to show them how to hold it and what to (somewhat awkwardly) press.
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More buttons on the device are a two-edged sword --- it's nice to have more direct one-button control to do various things, but I find that
too often I've inadvertantly pushed a button I didn't mean to, and now I have to wait for some application to come up that I don't want,
only to close it. Note, however, that at least with some systems, you can go into the system settings are reassign buttons, to include
assigning them to do nothing! This can work great until and unless something causes you to reset everything back to factory defaults, in
which case you would then need to remember how to go back and reassign the buttons again.
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Processor Speed and RAM
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In the same way the a person supposedly can never be too young, too thin, or too rich, with any kind of computer you can never have a processor that's too fast, nor have too much RAM (memory) nor too much hard disk space. In the latter case, there's likely no "hard disk"
on your smartphone; the equivalent of a hard disk (offline storage) is actually shared with working RAM for running programs, but perhaps
more important for you overall is the ability to extend that with some sort of add-on memory card.
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So within reason, you want a device with good processor speed and a lot of RAM, where what the words "good" and "a lot" are defined to be
will change over time. Processor speed and RAM tend to increase in devices over time, but software grows to take advantage of it and it
often still seems like we're waiting on slow devices.
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One related issue you'll have --- or at least I have --- is that when I install software I'm asked if it should be installed in the native
memory of my device, or on my microSD card. I always select the latter, knowing how limited the native memory is, but I also realize that
this sort of locks me in to keeping that one microSD card resident at all times. I could swap it out, to make other stuff available
(perhaps additional MP3 music, or video if I was so inclined), but then because I've installed certain programs on the
microSD card, I either have to install them again on the other card, or I've temporarily lost certain functionality. I choose to
keep life simple and stick to a single card, though I backed this up to my home computer hard disk before beginning my trip.
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"Four bars but can't make a call"
This is an issue that can be frustrating for both phone conversations and internet use (via your cell phone). Cell phones typically give you
what's actually a crude approximation of "can I reliably make a call", normally in the form of signal strength bars. "Four bars" (or perhaps in
some cases "five bars") is supposed to mean you have a strong signal, and can expect good and reliable communication. Unfortunately, it's more
complicated.
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There's no industry standard for what those signal strength bars mean
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You can have a strong signal without having much of that signal actually being useable to your phone, at this particular place and time
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Due to interference ("multipath interference" to be more geeky) your primary signal can be strong but your ability to actually communicate
might be poor --- depending on which underlying communication standard your phone (and phone company) use.
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If I understand correctly (I'm no expert in this area), the signal strength typically just tells you how well your phone is receiving
signal from the nearest cell tower, and might tell you nothing about how well the tower can receive signal from your phone. Cell towers can
pump out a powerful signal; your little phone cannot.
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While your phone is communicating with the cell tower, information on the quality of signal is exchanged, which is at least part of why
signal strength can seem to change while you're communicating --- an initial estimate might be updated by the actual quality of
communication
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The best way to know whether a given service works in a given location is to have actually tried it. Fortunately, a hiker by the handle of
Halfmile has been accumulating data for the PCT about how well different phone services work in
different locations. Even here, however, your mileage may vary. I've had the experience of standing side-by-side with a person who was
using the same carrier (AT&T in this case) and he had good coverage whereas my phone searched but failed to make a connection with the
tower. This stuff is, unfortunately, not simple.
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Conclusion
My apologies if the above seems complicated; it doesn't have to be tremendously hard to get a smartphone set up to provide some very useful on-trail
functionality. I've tried to provide enough detail to be useful --- but not to dishearten anyone! If you're not technically inclined, you might look
around for a friendly "resident geek", perhaps a family member or friend, someone who will help you get your smartphone set up and working in the ways
that are most important to you for trail use. Once setup & working and after a little "how to" learning on your part, working with one of these in
the field doesn't have to be terribly complicated. Though to be fair and honest, the more you can understand and have worked through on your own, the
better off you'll be if something inevitably "stops working the way it used to" during the hike.
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Appendix I: Comparing National Geographic PocketTopo to Memory-Map Navigator
I used National Geographic PocketTopo software on my Windows Mobile platform smartphone in thru-hiking the PCT last year (2008), in conjunction with their state series maps for CA, OR, and WA. Total cost was $25 for the Pocket Topo software plus about $100 per state, so a bit over $300, but as I live in the NW, I already owned the OR and WA state products.
In preparing for an Appalachian Trail thru-hike attempt in 2010, I opted to try an alternative product by www.memory-map.com, their "Navigator" product --- in part because I don't own Topo map data for any of the various states that the AT passes through, so it would have cost quite a bit to obtain NG Topo maps for all of those (hundreds of dollars). Memory-Map sells three levels of their product (all the same thing but each with additional features unlocked): Discoverer, Navigator, and Professional. Discoverer comes along free if you buy one of their state software products (a little over $70), but its use is limited to maps that you purchase from memory-map.com (the same restriction applies to PocketTopo with NG Topo maps). But if you either upgrade to (for $50 more) or just buy in the first place ($100) the Memory-Map Navigator product, you have the ability to import maps from other sources, and USGS maps are available online for free --- all of them for the U.S. on www.libremap.org, and some more focused collections exist elsewhere. Or at least, I was able to find all of the Applachian Trail (AT) USGS maps collected in one place, and used a freeware downloading tool to easily bring them onto my hard drive for import into Memory-Map software.
My experience with Memory-Map is thus far pretty limited, but based on my PCT experience with Topo software last year and in some wrestling to figure out how to put free AT maps onto Memory-Map software this year, I'm favorably impressed with Memory-Map. It's still not easy (!), but it's certainly do-able for a person that has some basic comfort level with dealing with computers, as well as a bit of patience, and if you want or need Topo maps for more than a state or two, I think it's cheaper. Caveat on this latter point: I've not explored the options of National Geographics new approach, Topo "Explorer"; perhaps it's price effective for a person that mostly hikes in their own state (and buys the NG state series map), and only occasionally ventures outside their state for limited excursions. (?)
Some tips if you try the Memory-Map approach:
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One challenge for whatever software you use is getting the trail(s) to show up on your maps. Yes, major trails like the PCT and AT do show up on most USGS maps in the form of fairly faint dotted lines on the map itself, but it's nice to have a more clear, bold line show up, in whatever color you feel you can see best, and it's also nice to have a more up-to-date plot as these trails change location in places over time (and USGS maps are very seldom updated). If you can find a current, accurate trail plot in almost any format, GPSBabel is a wonderful (and free) piece of conversion software that allows you to convert that trail data into the format your software understands.
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If you go with Memory-Map software, note that the maps you can download for free will lack elevation data and indexing information (names of places and features on the map). But Memory-Map.com offers this data for free --- you can download it from their website and then import it into your system. This issue doesn't apply to PocketTopo as you're locked into using Topo brand (purchased) map data only.
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If you find a bunch of interesting maps all linked to from the same page, a really useful add-on for the Firefox browser is called "DownLoadThemAll!", and does exactly what it sounds like. This was very helpful to me in downloading 249 maps from Trailogic.com in preparation for the AT hike next year.
Point-by-point product comparison
What follows is a point-by-point comparison of the PocketTopo product versus Memory-Map Navigator as used on my smartphone. This isn't meant to be complete or comprehensive, but just summarizes the key points from my subjective point of view after using PocketTopo a lot and spending a few days playing around with Memory-Map Navigator. In particular, it's possible that there are flaws in the latter product that I haven't encountered yet. Another caveat is that Memory-Map only works on Windows Mobile platforms, plus it works in at least some manner on various standalone GPS products (Garmin, Magellan, etc). I believe PocketTopo might support an older Palm platform, but don't recall for certain; I of course used it on my Windows Mobile platform smartphone too.
Comparison points:
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Locked in: With PocketTopo, you can only use maps purchased from National Geographic Topo products. With Memory-Map software, you can pay to get a (slightly) higher end product that allows import of maps from any source, albeit with a bit of work and fiddling/learning curve on your part. IMO this is huge, insofar as all USGS maps in the US are available for free, and maps for some other countries are available too (not necessarily free ...). Note that Memory-Map is a product that's pretty well known and used outside of the U.S.
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Buggy: I ran into multiple bugs (software flaws) in PocketTopo. I've not yet run into any with Memory-Map software. Important for me is that when I reported bugs a year or two ago --- including IMO very severe --- National Geographic folks informed me that they have no plans to release an update, whereas on the Memory-Map web page they list changes (enhancements and bug fixes) from various version releases they've made.
One PocketTopo bug I encountered was that when I asked it to show me UTM coordinates for my current position, it gave me coordinates that were (very substantially) wrong! Another was that if I exported a decently large map, at some unclear point in export size it would simply fail to export correct elevation data.
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Memory-Map Navigator has a one-click button to toggle between two views (different scale perspectives on the same location). Very handy. Topo, OTOH, offers five levels of scale for all their maps; with Memory-Map you typically get three, and if you're importing your own maps you have to separately import and process each level --- such that I might not always bring other levels in. Both products offer the option of bringing in just the 1:25,000 scale to save space on the mobile device. FWIW, I almost always use just the 1:25,000 scale, though if I had 1:100,000 or 1:250,000 available, I think I might use one of those a bit more with Navigaors superior interface to swap those views.
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Both devices allow you to see the elevation of any point on the map, but it's easier to do with Memory-Map Navigator. And per above, if you export a fairly large map with PocketTopo, the elevation data you get is bogus (though at least usually obviously so, like a negative number).
I tyically wear an altimeter, and it can be nice to calibrate it using elevation from the GPS. To be clear, not elevation that the GPS calculates, but elevation data read off the map for the specific point I'm standing on, which I'm sure is more accurate.
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Memory-Map Navigator provides a scale bar on the bottom of the mobile device screen, which I'm already finding very handy. PocketTopo doesn't have this, and I recall multiple times in the past when I was wondering how far a "screenful" of map represented.
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Using Memory-Map Navigator scrolling speed and just generally "working-with-the-software" speed doesn't seem to degrade as much as the map sizes get larger. On both the PCT last year and the AT next year, my approach has been to split the trail into multiple pieces, but sill in fairly large chunks --- in part so I can delete maps as I move north to free up space for photographs I take along the way. For example, I've got all of the state of Virginia USGS quads that the AT passes through in a series of 60 quad 1:25,000 scale maps in total, which takes up nearly 300 MB on my microSD card in my phone. As far as I can tell, the software works with this as fast as it does with the 11-map chunk that represents the small section of Geogia that the trail passes through. My recollection of PocketTopo is that I would have found the Virginia chunk to be measurably slower to work with, at least in terms of load time if nothing else.
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With PocketTopo what you export to the mobile device is map data within a defined rectangle, much in the same way that you specify an area to print. With Memory-Map Navigator you can either create a map chunk by merging individual USGS quads together and export that in one go (regardless of shape), or you can more flexibly define a polygon subset to export using their track creation tool and export that. Exporting chunks of a never-straight PCT trail last year required me to iteratively choose between exporting many small rectangles that I would have to individually load when I got to the appropriate part of the trail vs. including a lot of map (and therefore microSD card space used) that I knew that I wouldn't need. Hmm, and related, I *think* that MM Navigator will automatically load the correct map based on GPS location, though I haven't worked with this enough to confirm.
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I do like the PocketTopo feature that allows me to turn off the GPS to save power if I'm browsing maps but don't need to see my current position. With Memory-Map Navigator, the GPS appears to be permanently on whenever the application is running. But at least it's fairly quick to load and then exit the application. And it's a menu operation on PocketTopo, which means I either take the time to pull out the stylus or I take a stab with a finger nail and about 1/3 of the time hit the wrong menu item and then have to wait until that can be resolved. So while I like PocketTopo better on this feature, even so the user interface takes back some of the "points" from this win.
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Slightly related is that both products have a mode where your current location is centered in the screen, vs. a mode where you can scroll around regardless of current position. But the controls for Memory-Map Navigator are easier, more intuitive; with PocketTopo I would periodically get irritated when I would try to scroll away to look at something and it would snap me back to my current position.
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Both products offer an elevation profile view, both on their desktop versions *and* on their mobile versions --- the the one for Memory-Map Navigator is pretty buried (virtually hidden) in their menu structure, you have to know exactly where and how to look for it. Key for me is that, again, if the map size is very large, elevation data isn't exported for PocketTopo due to an obvious bug in the software, so this feature becomes ununseable in that case. It's not a high priority feature for me, just occasionally a neat gee-whiz. But maybe not on the more up-and-down AT, if I can easily carve out defined chunks of the trail (track overlay) to see what's coming --- it's possible this could help a bit in planning (?).
There are certainly other comparison points that could be made and --- again, I didn't do any exhaustive analysis here, these are just points that struck me in the context of my own experience and in how I personally see myself using them. At this point I'm feeling that --- despite quite a bit of time and energy (and learning curves) to make the switchover, that I'm glad that I did. I'll also say that in a couple of interactions with the company behind the Memory-Map software I found their customer service to be quite good. Before I purchased anything, I got a couple of email replies with helpful details in response to questions, and when they delayed shipping a map DVD product that I purchased, they basically insisted that they give me a second equivalent product for free in recompense (I actually told them I didn't think it was that big a deal, but they tossed in an intelligently chosen adjacent state's worth of data anyway). In the context of how National Geographic has opted to sort of lock away volunteer-provided content that used to be easily available via their "mapxchange" process, I'm particularly pleased to find that the Memory-Map alternative is backed up by decent customer service.
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Appendix II: For iPhone users
I unfortunately have no personal experience with the iPhone, but it's become a very popular and very common option, so with the caveat that all I'm doing is passing on somewhat haphazardly gathered information, here are a few comments:
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As of this writing (Fall 2009) available iPhone models are the original iPhone, the iPhone 3G in 8GB and 16GB variants, and the iPhone 3GS in 16GB and 32GB variants. The latest 3GS versions have a 3 megapixel camera, the earlier models have a 2 megapixel camera. All but the original iPhone have an integrated GPS.
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I believe that the GPS chipset in the later iPhone models is the Qualcomm MSM7201A gpsOne. I've read conflicting reviews where some suggest this works as well or nearly as well as SirfStarIII, others suggest that it's not quite as sensitive --- my guess is that it will work fine for backpacking use. If you look for reviews on this topic, take care to sort out reviews by folks who are focused on using it in an automobile (often with a clear view of the sky), versus situations that more closely match backpacking conditions. Backpackers are often interested in how well (and how fast) the GPS locks onto satellites when under tree cover or where terrain blocks part of the sky.
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While there are rumors of Apple someday offering a model with a removeable battery, this doesn't exist today. So you don't have the option of buying spare batteries to carry along on a trip. Of course there are other recharging options, and given the popularity of the iPhone there are likely more options dedicated to this particular device, such as the mophie juice pack air, etc etc. I personally would still incline to a device that offers a removeable battery, but given the excellent user interface and the host of applications available to it, if you're willing to pay the $$ price for an iPhone, the battery might not be a deal killer for you.
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A couple of September 2009 posts on the PCT discussion list laid out some interesting topo mapping alternatives for the iPhone here, with follow-ups here and here.
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Links to the products referenced in that overall discussion:
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