On Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:05:35 Carl Turney wrote:
I've never had a smart phone, and probably need to get one soon. For the time being, I'd rather use it just as a GPS... and as an Android learning tool, when near our home wifi. (Moving up to a voice/data plan some months from now.)
For what you are talking about you might be better off buying a cheap tablet. Android phones and tablets are almost identical apart from size and the ability to make phone calls.
1) Could I run it as a GPS to help me navigate on the road, even though it would not have a SIM card in it? (i.e. Load some detailed Melbourne roadmap and a GPS application into it at home via the wifi, and then rely solely on the GPS to help me navigate from spot to spot as I do my part-time casual driving job.)
Many phones will refuse to boot without a SIM, but an inactive SIM will be fine. So keeping a collection of old SIMs is a good idea. I can probably bring one to the next LUV meeting if you end up getting a phone that needs a SIM. The Open Street maps program has been mentioned, the app name is "osmand". The "free" version allows a limited number of vector maps to be downloaded, from memory I think you can have 10 maps when all you probably need is the world map and the map of Australia. Osmand wasn't very useful for looking up locations last time I tried (there was no partial search facility). But if you just want to look at a map of your current location with a dot showing where you are then it works really well. Unless you are going to be regularly out of range of cell towers this won't be an issue. I expect that you will get a 3G plan that has a decent amount of data included soon enough. Once you try a modern smart phone you're sure to like it.
2) Do (m)any Android smartphones have removable and readily available/affordable after-market batteries? (I tend to hang on to things for a long time, and it's always the batteries that die [over time] on such devices for me. Manufacturer's replacement batteries tend to cost as much as an entire device.)
http://www.mugen-power-batteries.com/ Most of them have removable batteries. I've bought replacement batteries from Mugen Power in the past and found them to be quite good. Mugen specialise in batteries that are better than those shipped by the manufacturer. They aren't the cheapest seller but you're looking at maybe $35 for a battery that works well instead of maybe $15 for one that probably doesn't. http://etbe.coker.com.au/2012/12/21/galaxy-s3-power-case/ Also you can get a case which has a battery for many of the more popular phones, in the above blog post I review one that I got for my Galaxy S3. http://etbe.coker.com.au/2013/05/29/nexus-4/ It has been noted that the LG Nexus 4 is one of the few phones that doesn't allow replacing the battery. It's also one of the phones that doesn't have an option of buying a battery case (or at least it didn't when I wanted to buy one). The battery on the Nexus 4 doesn't last nearly as long as the Galaxy S3 (see the above URL). So I while the Nexus 4 is cheap and full featured it's not the phone to get if you want good battery life. You can get external battery packs for phones. This is OK if you want to have a large battery in your pocket while playing Ingress but not good for most other phone use.
3) Can one reasonably connect a REAL keyboard to a smartphone? (I hate the absurd tiny touch-keyboards on small devices, and the quasi-Morse Code of using a phone number pad.)
There are a variety of Bluetooth keyboards available, the majority of them aren't real keyboards (not nearly as big as on a laptop) but they can be a significant improvement for some people. I bought one and didn't find it particularly useful, I found that a better solution to the problem of a tiny on- screen keyboard was to buy a Samsung Galaxy Note 2. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/