The original Tamagotchi was an egg shaped digital "pet" which has been first sold in 1996 in Japan. I was taking care of a Tamagotchi for a colleague for a few days back then and obviously, this was rather silly. Since then, all these smartphones and most other gadgets were for me just improved Tamagotchis, and the whole development did not really enter my life, as I don't have the time and patience to take care of them. But I have to say that one machine surprised me recently, which is my iPad mini (the model of 2013 - I guess they change all the time). I have been using it to read my Kindle books and watch the news, but I would have never thought that you can use it also for navigation when you are off the grid. The GPS receiver is fast and sensitive and came nearly close to my good old Garmin GPSMap 62S. I used it with the Maps with Me China offline map. I saw the reviews by some people, that their favorite bakery and the way they walk their dog in the morning is not on there. But hey, you won't care about your bakery, when you travel along the Chinese-Russian Border of Inner Mongolia and find every (every) little trail. I was very impressed. Excellent.

Track North of Shiwei along the Chinese-Russian border as downloaded in 2014 from Maps with Me (www.maps.me).