Android topo map apps

[jefftk]

Anyone have any experience with some of the topo map apps available for android?

It looks like a few of the top rated ones are:

US Topo Maps
BackCountry Navigator TOPO GPS
Trimble Outdoors Navigator

So far I've downloaded the free version of the US Topo maps app.

Has anyone found any particular one they like that is worth paying for to get all the features?

 

[Prepper]

You want BackCountry Navigator! I love it.

A few years back, I tried every one I could find. (Trimble might be new, have not heard of it.) BackCountry Navigator was the only one I found worthwhile, and it has been on every Android device I've owned.

Some things I like include:

- Free map downloads of all kinds from multiple sources (topo, satellite images, etc.). Yeah, that's right Garmin, FU! I'm sick of Garmin's schemes to charge excessive money for maps that are actually publicly available.

- The downloads allow offline use, of course. If you have a GPS signal still, you're good to go. So, you can be out of range, or on a tablet that doesn't have mobile data.

- I contacted them once about something that was confusing me, and they got back to me right away and were helpful.

- You can do the usual making of waypoints, recording a track, etc. I like to edit the maps on the PC and copy them back to the Android device, to do things like clean up the borders I've marked, have the trails nicely displayed, etc.

 

[FreeWillie]

Second on Backcountry.

Sent from the depths of Hell using TapaTalk

 

[jefftk]

I got the free/demo version of that. Its not entirely obvious to me, but it looks like with the paid version you can set it to store maps/tracks to SD card storage, instead of the device storage - is that correct? I don't recall it prompting me for a save location when I downloaded a few map sections.

I was on a hike today, had Google Tracks, US Topo, and Backcountry Nav running. Google tracks showed at the top of the list for battery usage, followed by Backcountry Nav, while US topo did not even show. Although, I'm thinking that could be because I did not properly download the maps for Backcountry Nav, and google maps was probably downloading maps as well.

 

[Prepper]

I'm not sure about SD card storage since my tablet only has built in memory.

 

[Cap]

Another vote for backcountry. Has worked well for me.

I like being able to specify an area of a map, download it, and turn data off.

 

[SquirtGun]

I tried backcountry and when you zoom in it is really out of focus. Is there a way to fix this?

Another vote for backcountry. Has worked well for me.

I like being able to specify an area of a map, download it, and turn data off.

 

[jefftk]

I tried backcountry and when you zoom in it is really out of focus. Is there a way to fix this?

Have you tried different map layers or sources?


Haven't bought any yet, leaning towards Backcountry Nav at the moment.

 

[Prepper]

I tried backcountry and when you zoom in it is really out of focus. Is there a way to fix this?

I haven't noticed anything like that. Which map sources are you using? It could be you picked a map source that really doesn't have the resolution you might be expecting of it.

If you let me know the source, and a sample coordinate to go look at, I'll try it out on my tablet and let you know what I see.

 

[joseph]

We bought one for our GPS when we hunted in Wyoming. Look here and I'm sure you will find exactly what you want. I put the mini SD card into my Garmin I put on my wind shield and it was the cats meow.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2621094

 

[jefftk]

We bought one for our GPS when we hunted in Wyoming. Look here and I'm sure you will find exactly what you want. I put the mini SD card into my Garmin I put on my wind shield and it was the cats meow.

http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/search.php?searchid=2621094

That link doesn't work for me, says "Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms. "