Has anyone had a play with Decathlon's new "outdoor phone" wot does GPS?

[alexb]

Says it all really. It just seems that for a single device that does most of what I'd want to do, this looks like a good deal.

[Horizon]

Its reviewed in the latest C+ (May) - get 3/5, although nothing glaringly wrong with it.

[alexb]

Yes, I've just seen that. Having (currently) no smart phone and no GPS with mapping and wanting both, this is starting to look very tempting.

[Dibdib]

My only word of caution would be that if you run the battery flat using the GPS, you'll then have no phone to call for help with in an emergency. I prefer to keep the two separate for that reason.

[andyoxon]

My only word of caution would be that if you run the battery flat using the GPS, you'll then have no phone to call for help with in an emergency. I prefer to keep the two separate for that reason.

Good point.  I'm using my huawei smartphone (while waiting for Etrex fix) for logging (MyTracks) and navigating (Osmand - follow gpx track function/where-am-I), and I carry my old yet tiny clamshell PAYG as a phone (back-up). 
I fix the smartphone on using a silicone Finn bar mount, and power (dependg on distance) with a 5600 mAh Anker battery sitting in saddlebag & connected with 2m USB cable (right angle connector).  One slight flaw in system is waterproofing, which atm is a decent plastic bag over, or disconnecting into a waterproof phone pouch to go in pocket.   Quechua "Water and moisture resistant" looks good... 

[Trull]

I've just bought one!

Initial impressions are very good, I had my inaugural Strava ride yesterday which seemed to record happily from my rackbag:
http://www.strava.com/activities/124659822

I've ordered up a 32G microSD card and am just waiting for my old number to transfer to it on its new micro-SIM and I'll be off.

I'll post up with further thoughts as they happen, but if you have any immediate questions please ask away.

[alexb]

Excellent!

Really just comments on its overall quality. How well it works as a phone and how well the GPS works really.

Have you tried the navigation app that came with the phone?

I'm going touring in May. It seems like this might be a sensible way to do the navigation and carry a phone (I'll not be alone and have USB charging available off the dynamo hub and at night in the hotel, so not too worried about running out of juice).

As I said, I don't have anything other than a chocolate bar phone right now, so the idea of having a smart phone that can do navigation on the fly is quite attractive.

[alexb]

I fix the smartphone on using a silicone Finn bar mount

How do you find these? They look pretty much bullet proof.

[andyoxon]

I fix the smartphone on using a silicone Finn bar mount

How do you find these? They look pretty much bullet proof.

Good - I only really use it when I'm in unfamiliar territory, and need to follow a gpx track using Osmand.  Silicone's pretty nifty stuff - though I do check it to make sure it all looks sound when I use it.  The only think I'd say to watch out for is if it's next to something a strap may rub on.  Very shock absorbent because the phone sits on the pad of silicone.  http://getfinn.com/

These may work.  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Multi-purpose-MTB-Mountain-Road-Bike-Bicycle-Silicone-Strap-Bandage-holder-/271376576824
Not tried them, but very inexpensive if they do the job.  The straps would go across the screen though.  (these straps also 'loop around' so the item sits on the silicone pad)

edit.  BTW I didn't realise the Decathlon phone is quite as large as it is, with 5" screen. Too big?

[L CC]

I've used those, they do work.

[alexb]

I've just bought one!

Initial impressions are very good, I had my inaugural Strava ride yesterday which seemed to record happily from my rackbag:
http://www.strava.com/activities/124659822

I've ordered up a 32G microSD card and am just waiting for my old number to transfer to it on its new micro-SIM and I'll be off.

I'll post up with further thoughts as they happen, but if you have any immediate questions please ask away.

Any more updates?
Looking around I see I could get a MotoG for about £150 which is getting decent reviews as a "budget" phone.
So the question is, do I get the "best" phone I can lay my hands on for the money, or do I compromise on the phone/camera/screen - pay a bit extra and get the Decathlon phone where I'm compromising the phone to gain the weatherproofing and bigger battery?

Have you tried using it for navigation?

[freeflow]

Just to add to this conference, I've been using a Sony Xperia Z Ultra which besides being weather and dust proof is also equipped with an ANT+ sensor.  The phone and bike  mount have performed sterling service over a number of off road rides and 100-200km Audaxes.  It is necessary to run the phone off an external battery if riding for more than 5 hours.  The setup requires a little more technical expertise that a purpose made GPC cycling computer but not much.  If you don't mind having an older phone in a weather proof topak smartphone bag then a Sony Xperia Arc S makes a pretty good cheap alternative.

[alexb]

What navigation software are you using. More importantly are you using it to navigate (i.e. turn by turn style routing - as you would use a conventional cyxcling or even car GPS) or are you just recording your route?

What I would like is to be able to set up a route in advance, have turn by turn routing, but also be able to check my location on a map.
I'm planning on a couple of tours, one in the UK of 2 days of about 85 miles each day, but on unfamiliar roads, so if I feel that I want to reroute it would be handy to have this sort of functionality.
The second would be in France over a week, again using a combination of turn by turn routing, but also having the map function as a back up.

I'd intend to download OSM mapping beforehand.

[T42]

Ordered the Decathlon one yesterday.

[T42]

Just arrived. Effin' ginormous & takes a microsim so I'll have to swap mine & get an adapter to use it with old phone.  Going to have to reorg the HB bag or buy a trailer.  Other than that, looks interesting.

[andyoxon]

Just arrived. Effin' ginormous & takes a microsim so I'll have to swap mine & get an adapter to use it with old phone.  Going to have to reorg the HB bag or buy a trailer.  Other than that, looks interesting.

I saw one review describing it as a 'phablet'...  In a way it's a shame the screen isn't smaller to make even more use of the high capacity battery. *

* maybe phone's size allows a bigger battery...

[alexb]

Just arrived. Effin' ginormous & takes a microsim so I'll have to swap mine & get an adapter to use it with old phone.  Going to have to reorg the HB bag or buy a trailer.  Other than that, looks interesting.

I saw one review describing it as a 'phablet'...  In a way it's a shame the screen isn't smaller to make even more use of the high capacity battery. *

* maybe phone's size allows a bigger battery...

3500mAh according to the reviews.
Please, those of you who've got them, letvus know how you're getting on with them.

[T42]

Charged mine yesterday, left it on for the last 18 hours - no SIM, no GPS, barometer app running. Battery now down to 42%.  Of the capacity used, the barometer app has used 43%, mobile standby, idle & WiFi 12% each, display 1%. I'm a wee bit disappointed by that performance. 

The back is held on by 6 tiny screws that are either Allen or Torx - can't see clearly - so battery changes in the dark & wet are probably out.

Otherwise: the display is good without being world-shattering, and the size is great for eBooks. The buttons are nice and positive. The lids over the ports are a wee bit fiddly, but then they always are.  The earphone/hands-off-kit socket is under a lid, so if you want to ride in the rain while nattering with the missus you'll need to put the phone in a polybag.

When you power up at first it offers to install a bunch of "default apps". I did, then spent 10 minutes deleting ads for ski resorts.  About half the 39 it sucked in were adverts or very limited test versions. Advice: don't.

That's it so far. Haven't tried it with a SIM yet 'cos of microsim etc.

[Wobbly John]

Re- mounting straps

These may work.  http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/NEW-Multi-purpose-MTB-Mountain-Road-Bike-Bicycle-Silicone-Strap-Bandage-holder-/271376576824
Not tried them, but very inexpensive if they do the job.  The straps would go across the screen though.  (these straps also 'loop around' so the item sits on the silicone pad)

I've used those, they do work.

I've used those - they also break. 

[andyoxon]

Charged mine yesterday, left it on for the last 18 hours - no SIM, no GPS, barometer app running. Battery now down to 42%.  Of the capacity used, the barometer app has used 43%, mobile standby, idle & WiFi 12% each, display 1%. I'm a wee bit disappointed by that performance. 

The back is held on by 6 tiny screws that are either Allen or Torx - can't see clearly - so battery changes in the dark & wet are probably out.

Otherwise: the display is good without being world-shattering, and the size is great for eBooks. The buttons are nice and positive. The lids over the ports are a wee bit fiddly, but then they always are.  The earphone/hands-off-kit socket is under a lid, so if you want to ride in the rain while nattering with the missus you'll need to put the phone in a polybag.

When you power up at first it offers to install a bunch of "default apps". I did, then spent 10 minutes deleting ads for ski resorts.  About half the 39 it sucked in were adverts or very limited test versions. Advice: don't.

That's it so far. Haven't tried it with a SIM yet 'cos of microsim etc.

AFAIUI a few cycles of charge and discharge maximise the charge.  Probably the only real test is to try on bike (aeroplane mode), as indoors the GPS & phone will 'hunt' for signal and use battery quicker.


The FINN silicone mount is quite a tight stretch even for my smallish Huawei, so bar bag may be the best option, rather than bar mount

though from road cc...   http://road.cc/content/review/113771-quechua-phone-5-water-resistant-smartphone

The waterproofing helps with navigating too, because you can just stick the phone on your bars and not worry too much about it, like you would your GPS. I've been using a BikeCityGuide Finn silicone mount (http://road.cc/content/review/99482-bikecityguide-finn) with the phone in landscape mode on the stem, and it works a treat. I'm currently experimenting with Sugru magnets, and third-party mounts like the Quadlock are available too.

[alexb]

Been playing with Osmand on a tablet in the car. It seems to work quite well. On a bike it should be perfectly adequate.

[Trull]

I bought one and have been playing with it - the battery life is actually pretty good if you let Battery Guru do its thing I can get 3-4 days of standby out of it. The phone is solidly built and inspired confidence in me at least...the only thing about it is that its only got a small internal memory space so I'm getting loads of "storage space is running low" errors. I've tried tapping the "move to SD card" option but its still topping out and that is very annoying as you would want a number of outdoors apps to be able to be taken with you. Between Strava/RidewithGPS/Osmand and Geocaching, then the usual fb and the odd game that's your lot.

The selling point for me was to have RidewithGPS running to update my position every 30 minutes so SWMBO can track my every move, so in that regard its fine - but don't think you can do much more, as there's no space.

I don't think I'll be retiring the eTrex ever.

If there's an Android 4.1 guru out there that can help with this please shout out!

SD card device - Internal Storage total space 0.9 Gb
Apps 650Mb
Misc 75Mb
Available 199Mb

Device Storage
Total space 1.91GB
Available 0.95GB

SD Card
Total space 29.71GB
Available 12.69GB

Any ideas?

[frankly frankie]

AIUI it's a feature of recent versions of Android, that they have basically disabled the SD card functionality.  You can use it for dumb storage, but not much else. 

[andyoxon]

The only thing l can really use my phone's 32gb SD card for is Osmand offline maps of UK (+500mb), images, and mp3 files.  The phone is supposed to only have 0.8gb built in memory for apps (4gb total) but is currently showing 1.1 GB used for apps (so perhaps it's 2gb for apps?). 

[Somnolent]

Thanks Trull
Having previously suffered from a phone with low internal memory (and inability to delete or transfer its bloatware to SDcard) I know how irritating that can be.   Sufficiently to be a deal-breaker in fact.