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Comment by khedoros1 | Hacker News Reader

- Operation outside of reliable cell connection.

- A call or text at an inopportune time doesn't inhibit navigation.

- The dedicated UI is simpler and doesn't change; my GPS is about 8 years old and has stayed the same the whole time. Every Maps app I've had has changed a dozen damn times since then; I value the stable interface more than the bullshit bells and whistles. It needs to show me directions and be otherwise unobtrusive; a phone doesn't do that.

- Sometimes I turn my phone off to eliminate distractions

- Sometimes I'll hand my phone to my kid to play a game

A phone does a thousand things, but none of them as well as a dedicated device can do 1 or 2 items from the list.

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I would add:

- Privacy. A dedicated device with a one-way incoming signal (GPS) and no out-going signal cannot track you. This is not true of any smartphone app no matter what they claim or what their settings are.

I'll grant that the privacy benefit is pointless for the overwhelming majority people since they will leave their universal tracking device[1] turned on anyway.

As an aside: I was impressed that my really ancient Garmin, which displayed only latitude, longitude, altitude, and recorded waypoints, had a special button combination to instantly and securely erase everything it remembered.

[1] cellphone :)

Agreed. I will never replace my dedicated Garmin satnav with my phone. That would be a downgrade.

I don't want people trying to call or message me on my "satnav" when I'm driving.

Google maps and whatever app on my phone is never going to be as easy to use, consistent, reliable and stress-free as a dedicated device. My Garmin doesn't try to up-sell and tell me about things I don't want to know every 5 minutes. Smartphones are a constant echo chamber of "do you want fries with that" micro-bullshit and irritation.

> - Operation outside of reliable cell connection.

This. I just spent the entire weekend outside of cell range. And I can't always download maps in advance because I rarely know where I'm going from day to day.

> I can't always download maps in advance because I rarely know where I'm going from day to day.

Can’t you download offline maps for the whole country?

On my phone I have two sets of offline maps for my + neighbor countries. Microsoft is free, Garmin was one time purchase. Both work OK without Internet.

Yeah, I'm not sure why it's such a common complaint that phone service is required for navigation. There are plenty of apps available which let you download whole countries/regions for very cheap, and can do all of their routing offline.

Because people will typically use Google maps, and Google only provides one month of offline map data before it demands to be put online again to "refresh" that data.

Honestly, the way Google changes the goal posts and rearranges the furniture within its own apps, I stay well clear of that mess when I need consistency and reliability. My phone remains a phone when I'm driving and need an uninterrupted, non-internet, non-phone navigation device.

You must live in a small country.

Downloading the data at a level of detail required for my needs would be many GB.

Are you from US? Microsoft’s offline maps for the whole country take 3.81 GB.

Technically that’s indeed many GB, practically modern phones have many more GB available, e.g. my one has 32GB flash memory.

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