On 31 July 2013 18:29, Tom Wilkins <tom@kampucheahouse.org> wrote:

1) Yes, but you'll need to download (and quite possibly buy) a GPS solution from someone else other than Google. Have a look HERE as a few options are mentioned. You will need a fair amount of internal storage to hold the maps. Micro SD cards are cheap but so are data plans from MVNOs like Vaya or Amaysim. If I was you I'd just get a no contract data plan for the months leading up to you swapping your normal plan over. The Google maps/navigation program is very good! And it's worth having a data connection as it will give you the best route for the traffic conditions at that given time.

In case it isn't clear from the above, current versions of Google maps/navigation will NOT work without a continuous online connection. Or rather, it will display your location, but not be able to load map tiles, so be rather useless.

This is also a problem if you travel somewhere without any 3G reception for your carrier, which was a problem for me, at places, when driving from Melbourne to Canberra, even with a NextG SIM.