Garmin, PDA or Smartphones?

For people collecting data in the field using a handheld GPS receiver for either GIS projects or location sketches, it's time to decide which device to use.

For these types of jobs. What to adopt? A Garmin, a PDA or a Smartphone?

There was a time when people had to have a Garmin receiver to collect data in the field. There are currently other ways to collect data in the field.

There was a time when having a PDA was a great advantage for collecting data in the field. Many PDAs at the time came with Windows Mobile OS to facilitate the installation of applications designed for this Operating System (OS) such as Terrasync, GvSIG Mobile, Arcpad or others. The advantage of applications at the time, along with Garmin, was the ease of working with digital forms in the field, thus facilitating the process of collecting diverse information, whereas with Garmin we were almost limited to obtaining the coordinates and naming the point lifted up.

Currently Smartphones and Tablets have gained market in the process of collecting data in the field, and investing in a Garmin in recent times when we already have a Smartphone is not convenient. One of the big advantages of using smartphones instead of Garmin is that first there are hundreds of data collection apps that can be installed on them.

It is important to note here that many phones already have the ability to obtain GPS signals with the same or better accuracy than Garmin or PDAs since many even obtain not only the GPS constellation but also the GLONASS from Beidou or others.

Nowadays whenever someone calls me and wants to know where to buy a Garmin or to ask for a loan, the first question I ask this person is if they have a Smartphone if they say yes then I advise them to use it by installing a basic application for collecting coordinates if this is your need (such as GPS Data, C7 GPS or GPS Status) as there are applications with even more functions when the objective is to collect data for GIS (such as Odk collect, Survey123, to point out that Odk collect is free).

Even Garmin itself, realizing this takeover of the market by Smartphones according to the improvement of the received signals, discontinued the manufacture of GPS receivers that were used for this purpose.

Explore your Smartphone for field data collection by installing programs that can be found in app stores.

Adapted from project Geominuto. Assistir vídeo deste tema

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By: Rosário Dilo