Last night we were making some short gpx tracks, like one showing how to leave our main route and go find the hotel we somehow decided to stay at in Rambouillet, beyond Versailles. (The "somehow" part is that we decided rather than sensibly stay in Versailles and carefully tour the palace, we would zoom by or through it and push on.).

After installing the new tracks in the Samsung Galaxy S3 that we use as a GPS, we were lamenting about how slow it is to draw the maps. Maybe something has slowed it over time, or maybe we have grown more impatient over time. Also, the 5" screen now seems strangely small.

Hold on to that introduction, and switch with us to a bit of planning for our next ride (after this one), which will be a short jaunt with grandkids up and down the Saanich peninsula, near Victoria. The big thing about that one is that it will be the first for little Joseph, who just turned three. Only thing, with Amelia and Evelyn (6 and 4) in the two WeeHoo spots, where does Joe go?

So here, on the day we are leaving for Montreal and Paris, morning found us at Canadian Tire buying a bike trailer. So what? So Canadian Tire is next door to Best Buy, local main source for electronics. I had been suggesting replacing the Galaxy S3 with a larger Note 5 or 6, some day. Dodie wanted to see how large (or not) these things actually are, so into Best Buy we went.

It turns out that the disaster of the Note 7 has scared all Note models right out of the store. Also, even 5.7" screens still looked kind of small.

In the end we walked out with the thinnest Android tablet - Sansung Galaxy Tab S2, 8". This may seem like no big deal, but there are two tricks about it. First, we had a 100% waterproof handlebar mounted case for the S3. That made the GPS available in all weather and it was held beside the paper map (in the handlebar bag map case). The Tab S2 will have to hide under paper maps in the map case. Is that a problem? We'll see.

Second trick - changing computers on short notice means transferring all apps and data on short notice, plus cleaning out the "bloatware" the thing comes with. No problem, actually, I like doing that kind of thing.

And one bonus - we explained to the Best Buy people what we were trying to do, and now they are fired up to follow the blog. Good for the hit count!

Heart

0

Comment

0

Link

Log in to comment or reply