Best Australia GPS

[justinn]

I will be traveling all over Australia for the whole month of February and rather than hire a GPS with the car's I would like to purchase one for the trip. My Jeep at home has a built in one so what are some good recommendations for a portable car mounted one?

 

[RooFlyer]

This thread discussed options for using your smartphone as a GPS. From it, I went from using a Tom Tom GPS unit to using Sygic on my phone where maps are downloaded beforehand, so there's no need for a data connection. there is a cost for 'premium' option, but cheaper than buying a special unit for perhaps just this one trip.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

I use the tomtom apps for iPhone for overseas with great success, just take a cigarette lighter adapted though as it can zap your battery. The car here has it built in.

 

[TiredOldFlyer]

Recently upgraded to a Tom Tom Go 6100 as it is offers free map and speed traps
For life and includes world maps (for overseas travel ) although it needs a micro SD
Card to load USA, Europe etc. Also provides traffic info and alternate routes around traffic
jams. 6 inch screen and great resolution. High end GPS and relatively expensive but
With free world upgrades good value for me.

 

[eastwest101]

If you will be out of mobile range and travelling in remote areas off the sealed highways (about 85% of Australia by surface) you may need a 'real' GPS which uses satellite positioning and also possibly a 'real' satphone if you do need to talk to someone.

 

[ComeFlyWithMe]

If you will be out of mobile range and travelling in remote areas off the sealed highways (about 85% of Australia by surface) you may need a 'real' GPS which uses satellite positioning and also possibly a 'real' satphone if you do need to talk to someone.

You don't need mobile coverage to use any of the main GPS applications on iPhone I've tried. Tom tom downloads all maps to the device and uses "real" GPS signals. The actual devices don't need mobile coverage either and the maps these days are fairly complete if you keep them updated.

 

[opusman]

There's no reason to have a standalone unit these days, just use your phone.

TomTom is a rip-off IMHO; get something like Sygic and you can get maps for the whole world for less than one country with TomTom.

 

[magnacartic]

For smartphones, HERE maps has offline capabilities and Waze is great for metropolitan areas (avoiding traffic).