Phone-based GPS

For those of you out there that have ever been curious about phone- based GPS systems I would like to share my experience. A few days ago I purchased a BlackBerry Curve 8310, red of course, to replace my aging BlackBerry 7290. I found that my new phone has GPS capability built right in!

I was extremely skeptical of how well it would perform. After all, GPS isn't the primary reason for having the phone. It isn't a purpose built GPS like you find in many cars today, so what would lead me to believe it would act like one?

I was shocked at what this system could do. Granted it is somewhat more tedious to enter destination addresses on a phone than in a car, but once you do the rest is easy. I love the fact that once you put in an address you can just put the phone away and it will talk you through the entire trip. I think this has potential for increased safety while driving because, I admit, sometimes those moving maps on car GPS systems can be distracting! If you do need it though, just pull the phone out and you can see the moving map. The system also gets frequent updates and as such can tell me when I am coming up on construction or heavy traffic and give me the option of avoiding it.

I am thrilled to finally have this capability. With all the driving I do for work to places I have never been before it really gives me comfort knowing that there are always satellites up there that know exactly where I am, even when I don't!