What Smartphone / GPS for touring UK/France ?

[Sweep]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

* Std 14-day return if not delighted. Fingers-crossed.

Please report back on your experience of it.

[mercalia]

My SIL has a part time business repairing mobile phones. He started of by repairing his own phone when he broke the screen. He watched Youtube videos and learnt from there. Four years on he can repair most things on a phone and micro solders components into phones with circuit problems. He doesn't like repairing Samsung phones because of how much you have to remove to get a screen out. New screens are relatively cheap, £10 upwards but no replacement screen is of the same quality of a new screen.
Lots of his work comes from phones that have been dropped into water. His advice is don't turn it on and get it too him asap. About a 50% success rate with these.
He uses a Chinese phone himself that retails at around £500. He had it given to him as it was broken, fixed it and is very pleased with it. He thinks it's a lot better than the newest iphone.

& the Chinese totalitarian eves dropping govt agrees and thanks him

[simonhill]

You asked: Should you buy an SD card straight away?

I presume your G7 is UK spec and has 64 gig of memory. This may well be enough. If it were me, I wouldn't buy a card yet, but keep on eye on free space.

Having said that, if you think you will need one (eg lots of photos and or poor housekeeping), then it may be worth getting one now (phone still in hand-back mode) to make sure it works OK. I have heard of people having trouble with SD cards not being recognised/accepted by their phones.

[francovendee]

My SIL has a part time business repairing mobile phones. He started of by repairing his own phone when he broke the screen. He watched Youtube videos and learnt from there. Four years on he can repair most things on a phone and micro solders components into phones with circuit problems. He doesn't like repairing Samsung phones because of how much you have to remove to get a screen out. New screens are relatively cheap, £10 upwards but no replacement screen is of the same quality of a new screen.
Lots of his work comes from phones that have been dropped into water. His advice is don't turn it on and get it too him asap. About a 50% success rate with these.
He uses a Chinese phone himself that retails at around £500. He had it given to him as it was broken, fixed it and is very pleased with it. He thinks it's a lot better than the newest iphone.

& the Chinese totalitarian eves dropping govt agrees and thanks him

He's on Facebook and all the other APPs like it so all his details are out there

[yutkoxpo]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

* Std 14-day return if not delighted. Fingers-crossed.

Immediately? There's no need unless you're nervous about the phone not working with one. Remember the problem is more likely with a card, not the phone.
The advantage of doing it sooner rather than later is that you can set up your phone as you like now. Later, it can be more of a hassle to change things around from internal memory to card.

Long term? I try to keep the things I'll need on my phone rather than a card. I had a card fail on me one time and lost a load of photos. The backups in the cloud weren't as high quality.

Of course, depending on how you use the phone you may not need additional memory at all.

[al_yrpal]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

* Std 14-day return if not delighted. Fingers-crossed.

The internal memory is huuuuuuuge, you dont need to insert an SD card yet, if ever. Install Osmand+ download the maps you fancy, fire up cycle.travel choose the route, download the .gpx and open it in Osmand+ by selecting it when you click on the guidance arrow and you are off...voice and screen guidance. One of these is good... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

Al

[francovendee]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

* Std 14-day return if not delighted. Fingers-crossed.

The internal memory is huuuuuuuge, you dont need to insert an SD card yet, if ever. Install Osmand+ download the maps you fancy, fire up cycle.travel choose the route, download the .gpx and open it in Osmand+ by selecting it when you click on the guidance arrow and you are off...voice and screen guidance. One of these is good... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1

Al

I bought a holder, something like this, mostly to keep the phone dry in the wet. The phone didn't get on too well in hot weather and would have warning messages on the screen about overheating battery. I think lack of airflow and being behind plastic caused it. I made my own holder without the phone being enclosed. If it rains I pop the phone into a ziplock bag and put it back on the holder.

[thelawnet]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

absolutely not. if you don't have enough space on your phone you should return it and get one with more capacity. sd cards are terrible on phones. bad news.

[mercalia]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

absolutely not. if you don't have enough space on your phone you should return it and get one with more capacity. sd cards are terrible on phones. bad news.

why?

[thelawnet]

I've bought a Motorola G7 Power, via GiffGaff.

I may be calling for more of your generous advice in due course . . . . .
e.g.
Should I be buying a micro-SD card immediately for . . . storing data & applications ?

absolutely not. if you don't have enough space on your phone you should return it and get one with more capacity. sd cards are terrible on phones. bad news.

why?

ime they tend to cause issues of various kinds - data loss, issues trying to set the location for apps/data, and so on. much less reliable than just using internal memory.

[al_yrpal]

One of these is good... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1
I bought a holder, something like this, mostly to keep the phone dry in the wet. The phone didn't get on too well in hot weather and would have warning messages on the screen about overheating battery. I think lack of airflow and being behind plastic caused it. I made my own holder without the phone being enclosed. If it rains I pop the phone into a ziplock bag and put it back on the holder.

Thanks for that advice Franco, havent had any problems so far but, I appreciate your warning about overheating down there in the steamy Vendee. I suppose it also depends on the model of phone you have and the Application its running?

Al

[Psamathe]

One of these is good... https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07 ... UTF8&psc=1
I bought a holder, something like this, mostly to keep the phone dry in the wet. The phone didn't get on too well in hot weather and would have warning messages on the screen about overheating battery. I think lack of airflow and being behind plastic caused it. I made my own holder without the phone being enclosed. If it rains I pop the phone into a ziplock bag and put it back on the holder.

Thanks for that advice Franco, havent had any problems so far but, I appreciate your warning about overheating down there in the steamy Vendee. I suppose it also depends on the model of phone you have and the Application its running?

Al

Overheating can have "weird" effects on smartphones. Last month in the 40℃ in France my phone was behaving strangely in that it refused to charge beyond 80%. On researching possible causes it seems that as it begins to get hotter, so a battery safety mechanism cuts-in to protect the battery which allows it to charge to 80% then terminates charging. Once it cools down, then it reverts to normal charging and will charge properly.

I have also read that if you get the "To Hot To Work" warning diaplayed you should ideally completely switch the phone off (i.e. a complete power down rather than just switching back to blank screen).

Ian

[Graham]

Has anyone tried the OS Premium service - for use of (detailed) maps offline ?

I guess that offine map(s) must be for limited areas otherwise the files would be enormous.

Just about coming to terms with the permanently greasy screen . . . . .

[RickH]

Has anyone tried the OS Premium service - for use of (detailed) maps offline ?

I guess that offine map(s) must be for limited areas otherwise the files would be enormous.

Just about coming to terms with the permanently greasy screen . . . . .

Not OS Premium, but I have Anquet OMN & have quite large swathes of Northern England & Wales in 1:25kHD & 1:50kHD downloaded (as well as a few other bits of GB) & I'm using just under 11GB of storage. I would imagine it would be similar to OS's offering as it is the same mapping. I have 64GB internal storage & a 128GB card so I'm not bothered by how much space is taken up, although I do try to get apps to store stuff on the SD card where possible.

[yutkoxpo]

Just about coming to terms with the permanently greasy screen . . . . .

Screen protector?