In reply to Jenny C:
> Another user who would love this - being able to confirm my exact location on the map with a accurate grid reference would be handy. Tracking or navigating functions not wanted as I actually enjoy the skill of navigating by map/compass.
I was working weekends in a climbing shop in Glasgow in the mid-90s when the first GPSs came in. Can't remember what make it was but it was a thing of amazement both for the price and the technology: "you mean it gets a signal from satellites? Like the ones in space?!"
Of course they were deemed to be useless for winter climbers at the time because the variation that the Pentagon supposedly added to the signal could have you tobogganing down the Orion Face when you were trying to reach the dogleg above Gardyloo. Anyway, I digress - I never got one and just carried on relying on map and compass for about the next 15 years. Since moving back to the UK a couple of years ago I have been using an OS map app on my phone. I buy map tiles via Amazon for I think 69p a tile and have slowly been building up areas where I go walking or biking. Ski touring in Lakes this January in, at one point, thick cloud, snow and very poor visibility, I realised that I was just checking my phone for my position rather than the map. As my phone maps are 1:50 and paper map 1:25 I would sometimes cross reference for looking for skiable slopes etc, but generally life was just easy checking the blue dot on my phone.
If you really can't resist the temptation to phone someone or update instagram while out, you can turn all those functions off on your phone. I guess that saves some battery as well and of course you can still use your map to navigate, but just check you are where you think you are by cross referencing with the map on your phone, then just put it away in your pocket. My phone battery seems to last fine for a day out in the hills, checking the map, often logging my route on Strava and even occasionally calling someone of posting photos if there is signal, but if the battery isn't great power banks are cheap.
I know not everyone has a smartphone, but most people do now - and it seems to me that most people could get exactly the same function - confirming you are where you think/hope you are - from that as from this, so far, non-existent device.
Of course this is only any good for the UK where we can get easily bits of the OS mapping on our phone (20 quid a year I think for a full subscription to OS then all the mapping you can use!), but then again so would be a device that just gives OS map references.