I'm planning on getting a blackberry 8310 under at&t, and from the reviews that i've read the gps is excellent, but is it worth it considering that they're charging 5.99/month for 10 routes and 9.99/month unlimited? I can get a good text to speech, road reading gps for 120 bucks. It would essentially pay itself off in under a year, and i could resell it.

Also, I don't exactly understand how using internet on your phone works. The only hi-tech phone that any of my friends have is the iphone, and obviously that's just the internet. How does windows mobile work for instance? Can i just check out any website just like that?

If you don't mind not having voice routing, you can try googlemaps. It's free. However, this is assuming you have some sort of data plan to go along with your voice plan since you were mentioning surfing on the net with your phone. The difference between googlemaps and other navigation software is that you download the maps on the fly while others require you to download the map to your phone before you start up the application.

To use the internet, you would need to have a data plan. The phone will come with a browser and its functionality is pretty much the same as a desktop browser. If the phone has windows mobile 5.0/6.0, the default browser is PIE (pocket internet explorer), but you can download other browsers with more funnctionality (ex. opera mini). Regarding sites, most sites such as yahoo, google, etc have a mobile version of their site so that it is more user friendly on a mobile device. If not, you will be scolling up and down a lot if you were to view a regular yahoo site on smaller sized screen.

i dont think paying for a gps service is worth it. most phones that have gps (n95) are i believe free. it actually depends what you use your gps for. if its looking for a few addresses i guess it`ll be fine, but if you look for POI (points of interests) then you should probably not use a cell phone for it.

i have tried some phone gps software and to say that its not the fastest thing around. if i were you i would just get a secondary gps, a decent one would be around $100-$150 if you know where to look.

I'm also wondering about this...
My plan with sprint ends this year, but I'm planning to get a new one. Considering that I'm also getting a car this year, I'll be needing some uhh navigation assistance (I have no sense of direction).
I was thinking about purchasing a car with an in-dash gps system, but I thought it over and decided I'd rather have something small (like one on my phone) that I can take with me in any car.

Have any of you tried sprint navigation?

ud want to have one in the car.....its so much nicer
it has a much bigger screen and has more convenience options
i recently got one for my car (in-dash) its very nice....i dont think i could have put up with the one on my verizon phone

In my opinion, I don't think that's worth your money at all. =\

If your phone does not have a built-in gps receiver then I recommend the in-dash gps system or a secondary gps device since cellular triangulation is extremely inaccurate if you are located in an area with a sparse number of cell towers (could be a mile off).

^I'm planning on getting the rumor, and it says it's gps enabled. Does that mean it has a gps receiver?

I was looking at some of the reviews and specs for the sprint rumor, and I don't think it has a built-in gps receiver.

Internet is internet, it works the same with any device. Your phone will have a browser for you to use to browse the internet. As for the GPS function, I don't think it's worth paying monthly for unless you use it a lot, if you don't, just get a data plan and use google maps or whatever else is available out there for free.

I use a Helio Ocean and only use the GPS function for traffic and the shortest way to the interstate or place.

if you want a phone with a gps receiver, best to go with n95 or the samsung g810. since it connects to the satellites. if you do plan on going this route, dl amazegps. it has voice guided directions. its freeware. and google maps is also a must. good for checking traffic reports.

Thanks for answering my questions!
I think I'm gonna go with either an in-dash gps or a secondary one.

I have GPS on my phone, but I rarely use it cus I have one in my car.
So if you have to pay your service company to use it, it's not worth it.
(I didn't even know that you had to pay for GPS. I just have it & I don't have to pay extra for it..)