Nokia N97 as an Outdoor Phone?
WILL ADD PHOTOS SOON
Features: 32GB storage, touch screen, built in GPS, slide out keyboard.
It arrived a few months back now, and I’ve had plenty of time to play with it. Ok, I admit that I missed the first few calls as I wasn’t sure how to answer it, but beyond that it’s pretty easy to use. It looks like a typical touch screen phone. You can easily customise the home screen with widgets such as Facebook, email, favourite contacts and so on. There’s not much choice yet, but this is certainly going to increase as this phone becomes more popular.

For a start there's decent video and photo quality, especially compared to the N95. The video quality is pretty amazing – playing back well in full screen on my netbook.

Battery life is now much better. I found that using Sports Tracker on my N95 would exhaust the batteries on one run! And I certainly can't run that far or fast. I can use the N97 all day on one charge, maybe browsing the web, making a few calls and using the GPS upwards of 2 hours depending how far I run. Using it lightly, I found the battery life good for about 2 days. I’m pretty impressed with this considering what’s been packed inside, and I’m sure with some fiddling around that battery life could be improved slightly (screen brightness). Some reviewers, even on the BBC, seem to claim the battery life is poor; but that's not been what I've found.

GPS speed is impressive, as opposed to the N95, and even picks up enough signals indoors. This means that the Sport Tracker running app work a dream. If you do any sort of outdoor sport then Sport Tracker is a free download from Nokia that allows you to track all your walks, runs, bike trips or whatever else you could apply it to. I found it tracked my stock run perfectly, where my Garmin GPS unit usually fails due to the tree coverage.

Nokia Maps has been useful on a few non-outdoorsy trips this summer, finding an Indian restaurant in Bridgnorth on foot and Stirling by car competently. It did try and re-route me to North Africa when I looked for an outdoor shop in Edinburgh (even on restarting!) It is also far from comprehensive when searching for local facilities, finding barely anything in Caernarfon. If you have the post code however, then you can use that to find your destination. That said, I’m making use of a free 30 day trial and would rather pay for a dedicated Sat Nav than this software; although the walking routing really was impressive. Google Maps is a free alternative that provides driving and walking directions, but only by a list of directions and a map rather than the more intuitive live map on the Nokia Maps. You can search for anything locally and it was pretty good, but like the Nokia offering, is still far from comprehensive. I can see this becoming a standard phone function in the next few years, most useful in the larger urban centres, but of limited use until there’s a proper database we can call upon.

GPS Viewranger works on the N97 and looks impressive. Viewranger and the N97 is definitely a killer combination – considering the GPS rarely worked on the N95. Being touch screen, you can scroll effortlessly through the maps and create routes much easier by tapping the waypoints in. If the phone was waterproof, it would double as a proper GPS, but it isn't and it's just not rugged enough to replace it outright.

Extras: Setting up the N97 as a modem is painless. I was online in seconds from my Samsung NC10, but then the performance depends on the signal strength in your area. There’s a built in FM transmitter so you can listen to tracks in the car, but whenever I used it I got an annoying beep every few seconds.

Some annoyances. While email was quick to set up, you can’t add a contact from a new email - something pretty fundamental if you ask me, or for that matter, by adding a new contact from a text message. On opening an html attachment in an email, you open the browser, but it’s not the full browser for some reason; bookmarks are missing. Overall, while I've found receiving email on the go has been a boon, the software is utter pants. Oh, and you’ve got to pay for Acrobat Reader – only a few quid, but annoying! Can be slow browsing the web, but this is probably down to the net speed than the phone.

Best features? 32gigabytes of storage means that you can put as much music as you’d need for a trip. It’s also large enough to store some video files, which you can download for free from iPlayer. There’s some half decent speakers built in, but you really need to listen on headphones for any real level of quality.
Some down sides? The overall build quality is good, but the battery cover is a little disappointing. It’s also a little awkward to remove, and suggests that it would not be wise to continually swap batteries. The silver button on the front! Why Nokia? Why? I’m not convinced either with the new charging socket – I don’t think that’ll survive the wear and tear over the next couple of years, but hopefully I’ll be wrong. Maybe once I stop trying to put it in upside down I might feel differently, but after three months I’m yet to figure up from down.

Another problem is the current lack of decent specific accessories. There are no decent cases available, and due to the annoying lock button on the side of the phone, it’s very difficult to unlock in a standard aquapack case as the plastic is thick, and while I can unlock it, it’s only going to be a matter of time before the case is holed. The arm band case from Aquapack though does the trick, but as the fit is snug and the plastic so grippy, it takes five minutes to get the phone in. Will post a review soon as I think that it’s becoming easier with age.

As an outdoor phone I’ve been more than impressed with the phone’s performance so far, but I’ve mainly tested it as a runner’s phone. I’ve recalled my letter to Santa asking for a Garmin Forerunner 305 now as this does mostly what I need. What will be an obstacle again is Nokia’s inability to market and support their technology in the way Apple can. There’s a Bluetooth heart rate monitor available by Polar, but only as a bundle with another Nokia, and not as a separate accessory. This is typical Nokia, great hardware but no follow through and support that you’d expect for what is arguably one of the most advanced smart phones yet.

Wild camping, I can watch a video or listen to music now, as well as the radio but at the risk of flattening the battery. Being a competent camera (for a phone) means further battery drain. So yes, it’s useful, but so damned useful that you’re likely to drain the battery before you need to make a call, so again a spare battery is essential for multiday trips. But I’ve used it for a few overnighters, listening to loads of music on the mp3, browsing the internet, couple of calls and a few videos and photos and still had enough battery to make and receive calls the following day.

Summary. A Smartphone that does it all, and much more if the software will be developed for it. Very expensive unless you pay £40 a month on a contract to receive it for free. Could be a tad faster and could do with being sturdier for outdoor use, but then it’s designed for mass market. Still waiting for the perfect outdoors mobile, but despite small niggles, this is a huge leap in the right direction. 9/10.

It’s funny how these thngs work out. I updated Garmin Mapsource last week as i was trying to put the Edale maps on and it decided it didn’t like the SMC maps anymore. So faced with a reinstall, i came across this on uk.rec.walking - Garmin Map Overlays.

Following the instructions on their site, i was able to install the maps quite painlessly onto my Garmin. The only thing is you’ve got to guess what mapping you need, but for more up to date GPS devices you’ll just install the lot. Me, i’m limited to 115MB, and i’ve got most of England and Wales on (and probably all the contours!)

SendMap is pretty simple to use

And the resulting maps on your Garmin, look good.

And similar shots from Garmin TOPO

I’ll add comparative shots for the OSM data soon.

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What is it? SPOT is a personal beacon that transmits SOS messages, or "i’m safe" messages so you can notify friends and family that you’re safe at the end of a walk (especially relevant in remote areas without mobile signals).

First Impressions. It’s very much like a little orange GPS without a screen. In the same way it weighs much more than you’d expect, feeling like a small stone in your hand. It’s also brashly orange, not that there’s another type of orange, which sets me in mind of the ubiquitous survival bag with which this device has a lot more in common than you’d think. Other than the obvious colour, it’s not something you’re going to want to use, but you’re always going to carry. When you do come to use it, they could both save your life. Though, very much like a GPS device, you can choose to use it as a purely emergency device or you can make use of it to the full and use it to mark yourself safe at the end of your walks.

Setting it up… You’ll need to do a couple of things before using the SPOT. Logging onto the SPOT user pages is simple and the set up from that point onwards pretty intuitive. You can assign email addresses for the device to send messages to, which was easy, and a text message number that seems a bit more awkward. Virgin Mobile and T-Mobile were present for the UK, but Orange, O2 and Vodafone were absent. Typically these three are the networks we use in our household, so it was rather awkward.

Despite that, whenever I’m at the end of a long, remote day with no access to a phone and even less chance of a mobile signal I don’t want to be worrying about having called back home. The advantage this device has is that the messages are sent back using satellite phone technology, not the usual mobile networks. I wish I’d had one in Scotland in April where after 28km of wading through deep snow I had to worry that I wasn’t able to phone home to say I was safe. Such is the problem that many solo walkers will have in remote areas. If I had a SPOT, I’d have pressed the OK button and put the device back in my pack to ensure it sent the message that I was safe.

You can set up a sharing page too. This page can be public or private. More of this later.

The Device… It’s similar in size to a typical GPS, only squarer. The exact dimensions are : 111 mm x 69 mm x 44 mm and it weighs in at 209g. It feels reassuringly rugged, which is vital for a device like this. If you’ve just rolled down 50 metres of hillside and broken a leg, you certainly don’t want the one device that can get you out alive to have suffered in a similar way. The instructions insist on Lithium batteries as they’re more reliable and don’t get drained by the cold. Battery life is good, partly down to that reason, claiming 1 year’on’ but not broadcasting.

It’s also waterproof, sufficiently so that it should put up with the mesh pocket of a rucksack and a bit of Welsh rain.

In the field…In use, there’s little to say. Press the OK button to send a message that you’re safe, the Help to tell your designated’team’ that you’re in a bit of trouble. Presumably, you could use this in a situation where there’s a team of people within range, or you don’t want to go through the 911 process. If you do get in real trouble, then pressing for a few seconds will send a signal to an emergency response centre. So far, there have been a few people rescued in this country as a direct result of the SPOT.

A further use of the SPOT is for people to monitor your location in real time on a webpage. This was easy to setup on the SPOT setting page and worked pretty well. The same page can also be used to show your location when you send an OK message. Accuracy was pretty good. One OK message I sent, pinpointed me exactly (just off path, and at a position I could recognise on the aerial photos). Some of the continuous tracking points were a bit off, but the device was deep in my pack at the time so I was being rather unfair. Most of the points were ok (as you can see on the image).

Conclusions…If it weren’t for the cost of the device, this would be in everyone’s pack. Certainly there will be those who say it will be abused, probably by the same idiots who ring mountain rescue as they’re thirsty. But in responsible hands, this has the potential to be a lifesaver. I reckon this sort of device will become a must in all outdoor centre packs in the coming years, especially as the price will inevitably come down.

Recommended if you visit remote and less visited mountain areas, especially if you’re adventurous and go looking for places

1 – It tells you where you are. You can switch it on, and simply find out your location. Most modern GPS devices will lock onto the satellites pretty quickly and provide you with a grid reference. Just make sure that your GPS is set to British National Grid and that you can transfer your grid reference to your Map! If in doubt, check out the downloads on this page for some general advice on map reading.

2 – You can follow a route. If you want to use the GPS to navigate alongside a map, then you can upload a route to your GPS. You can create a route in a digital mapping program such as Tracklogs or Memory Map, or you can download them from websites such as (Walk Eryri). By the same token, you can swap routes with others. If you’re desperate, you can create a route on your GPS by manually entering the waypoints. There’s just not enough jelly babies in Wales to persuade me to do that. While it may be tolerable to input a waypoint or two, the tens you’ll need to create a proper route should be manually input by masochists only.

Once the route is in the GPS, set it to navigate the route, and on my Garmin, it beeps each time you pass a waypoint. Sat in my pack like that, I know I’m on the right route without having to get the map out unless I have to.

Digital mapping costs anything from £25 upwards, and if you do most of your walking in one area, can work out reasonably cheap. You can also print your routes out as Ordnance Survey maps as an added bonus.

3 – It can tell you when you’re due to arrive home. Well, at the end of the walk at least. If you’ve put a route into the GPS, then the trip computer will tell you how far the end of the route is and when you’re likely to arrive there at your current speed. On mountains, it’s a little off when you’re going up hill as mine doesn’t take the ascent into account. So a little common sense needs to be used too. I tend to take more notice of this when I’m on a descent, or where the walk is level (ish). It was reasonably accurate on my last two walks, being within 20mins of the actual time.

Even if the time isn’t accurate enough, you’ll always know exactly how far it is to your destination.

4 – Free contour maps. Ok. This depends on your GPS. You’ve got to have a Garmin that lets you display mapping. One way to tell is if it’s compatible with the rather expensive Garmin Topo software, then you can put free contour mapping by the SMC onto it. You’ll need to be a bit techy, but nothing extreme.

You will need a copy of Garmin Mapsource that may or may not come with your GPS, to install the mapping and you should add something like the Garmin Mapsource Roads and Recreation to add roads, coastlines and lakes. You can usually pick this up very cheap on eBay. Makes the GPS much more user friendly in the field. Add a waypoint in for each summit, and you’re laughing.

As you can see from the screen grab of the MapSource program, it’s perfectly capable of being used to design or edit routes. If you’ve received it with your GPS, then you can dabble with digital mapping of a sort for free.

5 – Logging a route. This is my favourite feature, and definitely the only one that I always use whenever the GPS is on. It basically records the route you walk. You can then save it to your PC, swap it or follow it as a route on your GPS another time. For me, it’s most useful used with digital mapping as you can see your route right there on the screen. If ever you’ve walked up a mountain on a path that’s not on the map, this lets you see where it is or was.

It can also be used as a tool to improve your navigation. A number of times I’ve gone off track, relocated my position and then found my way back somehow. Looking at the recorded route on a map I can double check that I was where I was meant to be!

Of course, there are a few things you’ll need to bear in mind. A GPS is useless without batteries. That’s why all my gear uses AA batteries wherever possible, so I’ve always got plenty of spare batteries, but might have to go without my camera. My head torch uses AA batteries for the same reason.

A GPS is a useful addition to your navigation, not a replacement. Brush up on navigation here. For the same reason, a GPS won’t take you over a cliff unless you really don’t know what you’re doing. The only time a GPS tells you where to go is when you’ve put a route in. If it takes you over a cliff then something needs to be said about your route planning abilities, not the usefulness of GPS devices!

Find out more on one of these GPS training courses.

’My recent trip to Scotland left me thinking about the problem these days of having to let people know you’re down safe. As I often walk solo, I really have to tell someone where I’m off to and when i’m due back safe. The problem in that there is never any way of telling people you’re down safe when your destination is pretty remote. Even if it’s not remote, then the lack of mobile signal and the fact that there’s never any public payphones or even ones in pubs these days means you’re still on the hill until they hear otherwise. I’ve just been made aware of a cool little device called a SPOT. This device appears to be the solution to the problems above. You can send a message to say you’re safe or if the worst happens, to request help. It can also send out your location, which can be displayed on google maps for others to follow (if you so choose).

SPOT personal beacon system

Presumably, this messaging works by sattelite technology as it states you need a good view of the sky to ensure signals are sent. Click on the link below to find out more. I’m going to write to Santa now to see if he’ll leave one in my walking sock in December. Click Here for the SPOT homepage and more information.