To sum up what he’s been saying, he likes having a stand alone gps incase his phone craps out making it impossible to use Earthmate or OnX, but when his phone works he prefers OnX over Earthmate. Not sure where you got what you are saying. Now I don’t think OnX is the best option but he prefers it for his use which we all have our preferences.
Personally I’ve never had a phone issue other then batteries going dead but that is easily solved and today’s phones last much longer on airplane mode then even phones from 2 years ago. So I don’t see the need for a redundant GPS, but I also believe everyone should have a paper map and compass as electronics can fail.
Thx Dotman
I like onx simply cause I had it first and all my data is on it.
I had a scenario this year that caused me to evaluate my system. We all have our syatem based on what we have or haven't gone thru yet..
I killed a bull way back in a drainage. I marked several areas on the way in on my phone app- it was a nice cloudy evening hunt. I really went in to check cameras and check out a new meadow I discovered the day before.
It was an evening hunt, I killed a bull, rain set in and it was miserable on a vertical wall of this drainage I just hiked up almost 700 vert feet. I worked til midnight breaking the elk down, hanging meat and hauling the first load out.
In all that I forgot to turn off my phone or put in airplane mode and it died. It didn't break, crap out or get wet in the rain- I just forgot to turn it off as I didn't plan on what happened to happen.
The mountains in the dark are a different animal than in the light. I struggled to get out of where I was. From then on I decided the stand alone GPS unit is a must for me. Their battery life is tremendous and with the garmin I had my sos system all in one without the need for the phone.
But I refer phone apps- easier.
I now mark waypoints in the gps and the phone app onx- 2 separate systems. Cause when you are exhausted, 2 miles from spike camp, 7 miles from base camp, at night in the rain, I like the comfort of back up.
The only reason I am using the earthmate app is because of Garmin. There will probably be a transition from onx to earthmate, but not until I can rebuild a data base from one system to the other- and I personally don't think earthmate is any better than onx
Your Gaia might be, but I haven't messed with it other than a google search of reviews.
Just don't need anything more than onx at this time.
The issue is everyone has an opinion on their scenarios, and rightfully so. Mine is built a certain way for a real reason. What happened this year wont happen again. I will continue to modify anything and everything in my system as scenarios dictate.