[AT&T Samsung Galaxy Note I717] Jamesyboy:
I use my note for 2-3 hours drives each week, and here's the key....if you're comfortable with your GPS app like I am, its a breeze, and an awesome solution. But there are a few key things. 4g is a battery drain enough on its own. Add that to the fact that you'll be driving through multiple cell zones, often with 3 or more cell sites in each one, and the note will he speaking to all of them. That alone will eat your battery like Michael Jackson ate children (all celebs are cannibals...ya know?), so there are two options for the battery issue.

Option one: Turn off mobile data completely, and use one of the many offline mobile GPS apps out there...start your route with mobile data on to pull down traffic data, and to route you around traffic jams, construction, or accidents...I use Navigon, and its the only app I've seen that can do all of this seamlessly. For other reasons too, Navigon is the best. It shows the speed limit, and warns you about red light cameras, or gives you audio warnings if you're going a certain preset amount over the speed limit. Also, when your driving on the toll way looking for an exit, it displays a HUD like visual representation on which lanes are okay to be in. Instead of just saying "stay right" it'll show you a picture of the toll way with 4 lanes...and 3 of them might have arrows in them, while the other has an x-mark in it. There are multiple voices and a dons, and once you download the maps, you're finished. In just 1.8 gigs, I can have a complete map of the whole contiguous United States and Canada.

This is the best software option for me. I've tried solutions that are free, and even for iOS, the graphics and design is better with navigon than Tom Tom or Copilot. Its well worth the 40 dollars, but you can often buy a region....say, the Midwest, the east coast, or the west coast for cheaper. Or you can wait for it to go on sale, and grab a North America or USA & Canada, or USA and Mexico Combo for 20 dollars. Whenever I've looked, its been on sale about fifty percent of the time.

Next, the battery options, you can do what I do, and use a travel battery pack that will charge a second battery without the phone having to be plugged in, and without the awkward cable setup that comes with mounting a plugged in phone, or keeping one on your lap.

Since our phones charge extremely slow from a car/cigarette port while using them, I find this to be the best option for staying juiced.

Secondly, its possibly to keep your battery at a certain level, or even charge it at a slow rate if you use good practices: know your route in general, and get familiar with the general outline of your route. After about an hour of using the app, you'll become confident in the solution enough to work on audio instruction alone. Use a headset--a wired one preferably...Bluetooth sucks in every way possible...its short range, it eats batteries like al roker ate funnel cakes, and it is terribly unstable and difficult to use, even for the jedi-minds here. Its improved somewhat over the years...but the goal here is to use a reasonable amount of power. Download your podcasts or music over wifi before you leave, and save power by only using the screen when you need to.

With a headset, my podcasts going, and my phone in 2g mode, I've found that my phone actually charges with the screen on its lowest setting (seeing any screen in the daylight is almost impossible for any device, no matter how powerful, or premium, or expensive it is, but using g it like this at night isn't an issue), and the audio is playing through the onboard speaker, or I'm playing music through the device via headset. I can sometimes even stream audio and use the speaker....though its not really loud enough to hear over almost any car going 55 MPH.

Make sure your car charger is rated for 1.0 amps, or 1000miliamps..at least. I don't know if the note can pull more or not...but even in the worst case scenario, if you had the travel battery pack (which, for thirty dollars gets you a wall charger, an additional stock OEM battery (none of the voodoo-magic extended battery crap that actually gives you worse battery life, under or over powers your phone, or only lasts 100 charging cycles), and a external battery case which will fit into any pocket you have (unless you wear skinny jeans....ew.), and will charge any note battery)) if you're phone died and you forgot to place your extra battery on the charger, in about 20 minute or so, you'd Be powered back up with enough juice to get you going again. After you placed your battery in the charger and plugged it in.

Lastly, you could get a power inverter from amazon or best buy (I would never buy some cheap Chinese version from amazon. I'd buy a brand name one from walmart or radio shack or even best buy) and you'd be able to charge your device at home/wall speeds.

Just using a few tricks, you'll never need to replace or run out of battery, and its likely you'll never even use a percent. But doing dome things with any phone will ensure you either don't make it to your destination, or that when you do arrive, you do so at 1-2%, of even worse....0%.

I think the Note charger travel pack is the best thing since sliced bread. I don't ever plug my phone in anymore. I bring the battery pack with me, and use a collapsing wall plug with a retractable micriusb cable to plug the pack in and charge my second battery...this means I can just plug my extra battery pack in at Barnes and nobles, my friends, etc...while still using my phone. I can even plug the pack into a computer and walk away. Which is great for long days at work, and means I can use my note 24/7 and never ever have to worry about battery life.

Sorry for the walk of text...and my goofy disposition. Its late and I'm so tired that I'm slap happy. But, to summarize, every device has it's shortcomings, but by spending only thirty dollars...I found away around the only real problem with the device--battery life.

The device is amazing in every way now.

I stopped using my $1300 laptop when I got my TF101 a year ago, and I stopped using my tablet for anything but reading and one fishing game since I got my phone.

AMAZINN!