Originally Posted by
ericy
You *can* go the smartphone route, but the problem you end up with is that you will generally need a data plan to download maps, It is possible in some versions of Android to "cache" maps in a specific vicinity, which would help eliminate some of that need, but that limits your options a bit.
So I guess my first question is, if you go the smartphone route, are you willing to pay the monthly (including the data plan).
There are a fair number of options for the iPhone that store the maps on the device. I'd guess there are some available for Android too.