DuckHunterJon
Lieutenant Junior Grade
- Joined
- Apr 19, 2010
- Messages
- 1,082
I'm not sure whether this belongs in the electronics forum, or here - thought it was generic enough to post here.
Just wanted to give a short review of the Mobile Navionics app for Android Phones. A little background - I learned long ago not to step into a boat with out knowing where I was and what was around (under) me. This was from growing up boating in the Thousand Islands region in NY (which could also be known as the Ten Thousand Shoals region). We just bought a boat again after a few years off, and one of my going in assumptions was that I was going to reserve money for my first GPS/chartplotter. Well, you can guess what happened, found the right boat, newer than planned, better than planned, spent more than planned. So the chartplotter is out for this year - to be added next year.
I started looking around, and came across Navionics maps for use on smart phones. They have different regions to cover large areas of the US. I have a Motorola Droid, and figured it would be worth wasting $12 on one of the regions to try it out. I downloaded the Lakes - NE US, which includes all the lakes from MI to RI, and fom ME to SC. Also has the St Lawrence River and most of the Great Lakes bays and shorelines.
Lo and behold, the charts are actually very good quality. You can zoom and pan around (not as good as seeing the whole area at once, but usable), you can overlay your GPS location on the chart, keep tracks, mark waypoints, and look up various businesses (food, marina, gas, etc). You can also measure distance and bearing between points, and setup different parameters such as units, alarms, tidal currents, etc. It's really a slick little package considering it was $12. The charts themselves are resident on the phone, so you don't need any phone or gps signal to view them. Lastly, if you have signal, you can overlay weather and wind speed/direction on the chart.
It's certianly no replacement, and I still have my old paper charts for hairy areas, but it's a nice supplement, or even a back up for little expenditure. I can't comment on the iPhone version, but I would imagine it would be pretty similar to the Android platform version.
Hope this helps someone else out that might be looking at the Mobile Navionics.
Disclaimer, I have nothing to do with the company or the product, I just like giving a good review when one is deserved. Too many negative reviews out there sometimes.
Just wanted to give a short review of the Mobile Navionics app for Android Phones. A little background - I learned long ago not to step into a boat with out knowing where I was and what was around (under) me. This was from growing up boating in the Thousand Islands region in NY (which could also be known as the Ten Thousand Shoals region). We just bought a boat again after a few years off, and one of my going in assumptions was that I was going to reserve money for my first GPS/chartplotter. Well, you can guess what happened, found the right boat, newer than planned, better than planned, spent more than planned. So the chartplotter is out for this year - to be added next year.
I started looking around, and came across Navionics maps for use on smart phones. They have different regions to cover large areas of the US. I have a Motorola Droid, and figured it would be worth wasting $12 on one of the regions to try it out. I downloaded the Lakes - NE US, which includes all the lakes from MI to RI, and fom ME to SC. Also has the St Lawrence River and most of the Great Lakes bays and shorelines.
Lo and behold, the charts are actually very good quality. You can zoom and pan around (not as good as seeing the whole area at once, but usable), you can overlay your GPS location on the chart, keep tracks, mark waypoints, and look up various businesses (food, marina, gas, etc). You can also measure distance and bearing between points, and setup different parameters such as units, alarms, tidal currents, etc. It's really a slick little package considering it was $12. The charts themselves are resident on the phone, so you don't need any phone or gps signal to view them. Lastly, if you have signal, you can overlay weather and wind speed/direction on the chart.
It's certianly no replacement, and I still have my old paper charts for hairy areas, but it's a nice supplement, or even a back up for little expenditure. I can't comment on the iPhone version, but I would imagine it would be pretty similar to the Android platform version.
Hope this helps someone else out that might be looking at the Mobile Navionics.
Disclaimer, I have nothing to do with the company or the product, I just like giving a good review when one is deserved. Too many negative reviews out there sometimes.