i phone or Garmin? (or something else?)

[ferdinand]

....If doing this remember that colour laser prints are water fast; in general colour inkjets are not...

that is kind of what I was angling at earlier; most folk's home printers don't quite stretch to colour laser, do they?

I have a local print shop that will laser print A4 pages for not much; barring miracle inks for home use I shall use those I reckon.

cheers

There's no reason why they shouldn't be a home printer.

You can get an A4 colour laser from just over £100. In the context of iPhones and Garmin that is not a lot.

Cheaper to run, and they last longer.

I'm still running an Epson home colour laser purchased in 2005 for £400, plus another identical one from eBay a few years later for £100. The only painful bit is the toner cartridges - I use refill kits.

An example of a cheap one is this Samsung wireless laser at John Lewis for £150 reduced to £120.
http://www.johnlewis.com/samsung-xpress ... fc/p711382

If you are taking inkjet prints in the rain, then you want pigment based inks not dye based inks.

Ferdinand

[Brucey]

thanks for the heads up; I looked at colour laser a few years ago and prices have come down a fair bit since then, clearly.

I am told that there is a bit of an arms war with chips in the printer and/or in the cartridge that are meant to stop you from refilling with generic toners, and that some models of printer are more sought than others because they are easier to refill.

cheers

[531colin]

...................



................

I bet you cant fit that in a jacket or back pocket of any cycling jersey..and even if you could .......................

Nah, that's not big....this is big........



Gets in my jersey pocket OK, but of course when you get to the edge or the corner you need 2 or 3......

[531colin]

Seriously, though, thanks for all the input.
As far as phones are concerned, there is more than one good report here of Sony Xperia....apparently a big clear screen, tough and waterproof. 321 pay go tariff looks good.
I didn't think opencyclemap was clear mapping....lots of colour for topography, but the minor roads difficult for this old man to see....I preferred the look of cycle.travel.....intuitive route mapping, too, which would be useful to plan routes for touring....I don't bother for local rides.
Still have to get to grips with exactly what things like view ranger, Osmand, and Alpine Quest really are and do.....I have looked at all 3 to-day, which may be why I can't remember a thing about them......

[Psamathe]

Seriously, though, thanks for all the input.
As far as phones are concerned, there is more than one good report here of Sony Xperia....apparently a big clear screen, tough and waterproof.

Sony Xperia phones can be "variable". My Android was an Xperia and after 3 months of fighting it (bugs that made using it a battle) I had an argument with Sony and they took it back and gave me a full refund. They had several pages of bugs they were going to check before issuing the refund and I got the refund quite quickly!!

That said, others like them.

Ian

[ferdinand]

thanks for the heads up; I looked at colour laser a few years ago and prices have come down a fair bit since then, clearly.

I am told that there is a bit of an arms war with chips in the printer and/or in the cartridge that are meant to stop you from refilling with generic toners, and that some models of printer are more sought than others because they are easier to refill.

Chat to your local printer cartridge recycle shop of little computer man first as to what they know works.

Check whether you need to buy one set of original cartridges beyond the ones that come with it.

I'm using Epson C900 colour lasers, but I bought those for colour quality for commercial publication of images.

Ferdinand

[bigjim]

Is it not easier just to make sure you do not get your pages wet? I print my routes in b/w. I print them back to back and number each day. They go in a plastic see through sealable bag and thats it. Works quite well.

[Psamathe]

Is it not easier just to make sure you do not get your pages wet? I print my routes in b/w. I print them back to back and number each day. They go in a plastic see through sealable bag and thats it. Works quite well.

A bit offtopic but a few years ago I purchased a custom OS Explorer map centred on my house (the "custom" was a custom "centred on my house"). I then went to my local outdoor shop and purchased one of these map proofing compounds (where you wipe the stuff over the map to waterproof it (I'm pretty sure the one I got was by Nikwax - so "mainstream" decent stuff). And the proofer smeared the print inks a bit. Not quite as bad as the map getting soaked but not as clear with the smudging.

So I'd avoid map waterproofers on purchased maps (or try in a small non-critical part first). Mine was a custom printed map (printed by OS) so maybe the inks/processes are different from their standard maps you buy in the shops. But, be careful.

Ian

[MGate]

Glad that you are getting towards a solution Colin. I hope you find that by looking at maps, and having a device that tells you where you are, leads you down new roads, finds you at new cafes and enjoying why we all love being out on a bike in the first place.

[RickH]

Much as I love my android phablet, one thing to add to the phone GPS consideration is that updated apps can, at times, cause rogue power usage & kill battery life - usually at an incconvenient time (or maybe that's just when you notice it)!

A Garmin, or equivalent, will give pretty consistent performance. I know I can turn my 605 on & 12 hours, or more, later it will still be working fine with no outside intervention.

Rick.

[531colin]

I have to start sometime, so I'm starting with an Xperia ultra, Three 321 SIM, and that "shortcut button".....'cos it sounds useful to be able to go straight to GPS without fumbling around.
Now for the newbie questions.....an external backup battery seems like a good idea....does it have to be a specific voltage or whatever, and does it need its own charger? (yup, I'm the guy with 2 back lights in case one stops working and spare batteries....both sizes)
How do I know if I need to get a SD card for additional memory?

[ferdinand]

Is it not easier just to make sure you do not get your pages wet? I print my routes in b/w. I print them back to back and number each day. They go in a plastic see through sealable bag and thats it. Works quite well.

The OP is in North Yorkshire.



F

[531colin]

Is it not easier just to make sure you do not get your pages wet? I print my routes in b/w. I print them back to back and number each day. They go in a plastic see through sealable bag and thats it. Works quite well.

The OP is in North Yorkshire.



F

Even Yorkshire rain doesn't go straight through plastic, you have to wiggle it a bit to get it through. I print A4 sheets from "OS get a map" and put them in Rexel folders in the bar bag/map case, much the same as bigjim.

[Tonyf33]

I have to start sometime, so I'm starting with an Xperia ultra, Three 321 SIM, and that "shortcut button".....'cos it sounds useful to be able to go straight to GPS without fumbling around.
Now for the newbie questions.....an external backup battery seems like a good idea....does it have to be a specific voltage or whatever, and does it need its own charger?

there are a couple of routes you can take.
Li-ion battery pack that you charge up as you would your phone/tablet, these are very commonplace, they'll connect either via the same USB (to phone connection) cable you use to charge it or have a direct insert connector.
Cheap and small here http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2600-mAh-Port ... 4ae1463d34
Larger ampage..MUCH larger and is 400g! http://www.amazon.co.uk/EPCTEK-Smartpho ... rds=Xperia
Ones with power level that aren't so large (265g)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/AZTECH-POWER%C2 ... rds=Xperia

Or you can go down the AA battery pack method, using AA batts so if you already have rechargeables this is a very cheap method and as AAs are available everywhere so you should be able to get some juice into your device almost anywhere. Again these use your USB charger cable to connect them.
Here's a small 2xAA, you can also find 4xAA ones easily enough.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Emergency-Cha ... 2c80318973

Or even solar http://www.gearbest.com/mobile-power-ba ... tAodgxIA7Q, you can also make these using AA batts & bits http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j& ... 7UbQ0pNEqw

The reason I use a std battery to pop in is that it already has a charge in it and is an immediate fix for the lack of power without having anything else attached to the gadget. All the external power packs are there just to top up, so you either wait for it to be topped up enough to fulfill the rest of your journey or you have to leave it attached whilst still cycling along. For me a very short time to get an actual bettery in is far & above the simplest/lightest/less bulky method (for me).

How do I know if I need to get a SD card for additional memory?

Most of the gadgets these days have a very decent 'hard drive' built in. Very basis is 8GB, pretty common is 16GB, 32Gb less so but optional on many & 64GB not so common.
Xperia Ultra looks to have 16GB built in, take away a bit for the operating system and that leaves you with circa 15GB to use for vids, music, photos, memos, documents, downloads etc.
it's easy to take the info off your gadget to your main comp or any other gadget, so unless you really need to xchange data/photos/music between gadgets very frequently or have a very large collection of music vids I'd say you won't need an SD card. As it is they are cheap as chips anyway (less than £10 for a good 16GB card) and having one in just in case is no great hardship & won't make any difference to the device aside from the added extra storage.

[al_yrpal]

The Teknet chargers are the tops. EC devices reputedly overstate capacity. Teknet allows you to recharge a phone whilst recharging the battery itself too. Had a Teknet for 3 years and its still going strong.http://www.amazon.co.uk/TeckNet-PowerZe ... rds=teknet

Al