I have an 8130 pearl on the Verizon network. As you all know, Verizon offers GPS (Navigator) for $9.99/mon or $3.99 for 24hrs. Id luv to have GPS capabilities on my phone, but I wouldnt use it enough to justify the price of either option. Is there a way I can use GPS on my phone for basically free?

Isn't another option to use Google GPS which is free and have a data plan for your phone?

If 1700m , or 5000m triangulation area approximate locations are adequate for you - fine. You can use the map, directions and search features. I have Verizon to, so just buy a freedom gps keychain/ or other puck for a one time cost ($65.00) and be done with it.

I would not stick Verizon

^^^its better than most other carriers in my area!

...and that's a big problem with triangulation IMO. In downtown Houston, triangulation tells me I could be anywhere in the downtown area (pretty useless). It gets even worse as tower density drops off. In the country you can be off by an entire town or worse.

I had verizon and bought a Holux m1000 puck, about the size of a match box and used Amaze and Nav4all GPS software. Both are free and worked great. Nav4all is a little quicker to load and give directions, Amaze has a few more features and MIGHT have a little more detail for larger cities and suburbs. Neither is very good at detail in the country. For instance I can see on the map a road that will get me directly to my destination, but the software routes me around out of the way by a mile. Sometimes in the city it does the same. routing me a block or 3 out of the way. Both have inaccuracies as I'm sure the standalone GPS devices do, since most use the same underlying maps.

I've noticed this about most of the GPS apps, they seem to want you to travel the main roads and blvd's but I take smaller ave because less traffic is generally faster moving.