I've been using my samsung tablet Tab A 16GB with GAIA (full membership), and Google maps (Offline), as well as Delorme/Garmin Gazeteer books. does anyone have a suggestion for a better tablet? was looking at the Samsung S6 128GB, but $549... kinda pricey, I hate apple products, so please dont...
any good or bad with the garmin overlander GPS? and does anyone use the Garmin InReach Mini as a GPS reciever? have been looking at the Inreach for quite some time, and am basically sold on it, only reservation is if the (spaceX) Starlink system goes up, and is active.
I have Waze (city nav), Google Maps (city nav backup), GaiaGPS (full - offroad nav. Gaia backup is a paper map) installed on both my phone and my tablet. The phone screen (~6-inch diag) is fine for city-nav with Waze or GMaps, but for offroad, I by far prefer the 8-inch tablet with GaiaGPS. I like that the 8-inch tablet fits in the pocket of my cargo pants. A large, high resolution display was less important than one that was bright in daylight and auto dimmed after dark.
My tablet is a cellular+wifi version that has a built-in GPS - I've found the built-in GPS to be very accurate for offroad travel, including in areas where the cellular signal is non-existent. (If anyone has experienced otherwise, now is a good time to chime in with the bad make/model!) Wifi is critical for bulk downloads of offline maps. For my use, I really don't want/need a flaky external bluetooth GPS that needs to be powered or charged in addition to the tablet or phone. A built-in GPS that just worked when the tablet has power was a "must have" for me.
Also, I'd suggest is focusing on the memory size. Every map tile of every map layer takes up memory. Some of the layers are particularly memory hungry, especially at full zoom. Checking my devices, I have 103GB of offline GaiaGPS tiles on my tablet (20 maps/layers, covering large pieces of New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana) and 2GB on my phone (north central New Mexico only). You can work with fewer layers and/or download only the map tiles needed for a particular route and/or limit the zoom level of the maps/layers you download to match the amount of storage you have available on your device. GaiaGPS recommends at least 32GB of storage for their app and a recent iOS or Android, but based on my own usage, I think a 64GB device would be a better minimum for offline map use - my tablet has 256GB.
As for brands, my first choice is the brand Scott hates (apologies Scott), but FWIW, for anyone else reading this, they've consistently worked well for me - even their "renewed" devices have been rock solid with some of their gear still in use after 10 years - I like that devices made in 2012 are still getting free OS upgrades and my cyber-security acquaintances are pretty vocal about preferring iOS to Android - though not as likely to be a big issue for our community.
My second choice brand is Samsung, my only gripes being that they haven't lasted as long as the first choice gear (yeah, I know. 10 years is ridiculous) and that sometimes a 3-5 year old device wouldn't get an OS upgrade. (I think they've improved on this?)
I've had enough bad history with Dell and Lenovo that I'll never buy their products again. Ever. Poor build quality. Poor Support. Poor service. Toss the Amazon Kindle/Fire into that same landfill. Lots of reviews out there on the Garmin Overlander, but they don't seem very positive - "overpriced" seems to come up in almost every review.
Oh, and a HUGE thumbs-up on OtterBox Defender cases. I haven't managed to break a screen since I started using them.
Second thumbs-up for GaiaGPS with a membership if you aren't already using it. The integration between planning a route on their website and navigating on my tablet/phone is really great. (But I've been beta-testing the new Overland Bound App and I'm **really** looking forward to the map integration! This one will be another "must have" folks!)
