I just came back from Europe. I spent a month in scandinavia, uk and france.
I relied heavily on my N7. Here is a brief write up on my experience.
Data:
- free wifi access in all hotels that I stayed at.
- during the day, I had access from time to time in some places like starbucks, pret a manger shops etc.
- I subscribed to verizon's global data $20/100 megs in case of emergency. Its normally $25/month but I had a discount. This service was useless because its very very very hard for the data roaming to find data. I eventually called verizon to get a refund.
The good:
- GPS and offline maps are gold. Its impossible to get lost in a city. On a crowded bus when you can't see where you are or what the next stop is, gps on your maps is awesome. Sometimes, its not quite accurate but within 1/2 block it always gets it right. I should note that on my GN, the gps had a lot of accuracy issues. I don't know why.
- 7" form factor. In scandinavia especially, it rained a lot. Helped a lot to have umbrella in one hand, and still able to look at maps on the other with N7. I seriously doubt this would be easy to do with a 10" tablet. Constantly, digging into my bag for my tablet pretty much tells me that when traveling, smaller is important.
- Google translate. While not 100% accurate, can't tell you how grateful I was to have it for signs and menu. Even though offline translate doesn't speak the words out, its still pretty darn good.
- Access to travel books, maps that I have saved on G Drive was also helpful.
- lots of entertainment options on planes and trains: videos, books, magazines, offline games etc.
- guides like field trip, trip advisor and mobile reference were great at giving info on that weird looking structure in front of me or is that restaurant over there any good.
The bad:
- If you don't have offline maps, the gps won't work.
- Can't search for things even major monuments on offline maps. I had offline navigator to supplement. Those apps are able to search but in general I find their interface to be not so smooth. Also, each map can be quite large to store
- GPS when you awaken your device takes a good 5-20 seconds to engage. When you're in a hurry its annoying.
- No indoor maps even in offline mode. I noted that when I was at heathrow, the indoor maps were great to have.
- can be difficult to see the screen while walking around on sunny days.
Conclusion:
First time I ever travelled without physical books or maps and I didn't need them. Considering how often I referred to my N7 while I was walking around I can definitely see how Glass would be a great travel tool...as long as you have data. If only I had data during the day as well, the experience would have been pretty awesome. I had considered cellhire which cost about $60/month for mobile wifi but decided I had sufficient enough data and quite frankly I was on vacation and its maybe good to be offline at least for a few hours everyday. lol.
I relied heavily on my N7. Here is a brief write up on my experience.
Data:
- free wifi access in all hotels that I stayed at.
- during the day, I had access from time to time in some places like starbucks, pret a manger shops etc.
- I subscribed to verizon's global data $20/100 megs in case of emergency. Its normally $25/month but I had a discount. This service was useless because its very very very hard for the data roaming to find data. I eventually called verizon to get a refund.
The good:
- GPS and offline maps are gold. Its impossible to get lost in a city. On a crowded bus when you can't see where you are or what the next stop is, gps on your maps is awesome. Sometimes, its not quite accurate but within 1/2 block it always gets it right. I should note that on my GN, the gps had a lot of accuracy issues. I don't know why.
- 7" form factor. In scandinavia especially, it rained a lot. Helped a lot to have umbrella in one hand, and still able to look at maps on the other with N7. I seriously doubt this would be easy to do with a 10" tablet. Constantly, digging into my bag for my tablet pretty much tells me that when traveling, smaller is important.
- Google translate. While not 100% accurate, can't tell you how grateful I was to have it for signs and menu. Even though offline translate doesn't speak the words out, its still pretty darn good.
- Access to travel books, maps that I have saved on G Drive was also helpful.
- lots of entertainment options on planes and trains: videos, books, magazines, offline games etc.
- guides like field trip, trip advisor and mobile reference were great at giving info on that weird looking structure in front of me or is that restaurant over there any good.
The bad:
- If you don't have offline maps, the gps won't work.
- Can't search for things even major monuments on offline maps. I had offline navigator to supplement. Those apps are able to search but in general I find their interface to be not so smooth. Also, each map can be quite large to store
- GPS when you awaken your device takes a good 5-20 seconds to engage. When you're in a hurry its annoying.
- No indoor maps even in offline mode. I noted that when I was at heathrow, the indoor maps were great to have.
- can be difficult to see the screen while walking around on sunny days.
Conclusion:
First time I ever travelled without physical books or maps and I didn't need them. Considering how often I referred to my N7 while I was walking around I can definitely see how Glass would be a great travel tool...as long as you have data. If only I had data during the day as well, the experience would have been pretty awesome. I had considered cellhire which cost about $60/month for mobile wifi but decided I had sufficient enough data and quite frankly I was on vacation and its maybe good to be offline at least for a few hours everyday. lol.
