Would you want to fly without a GPS?

I doubt if there are any smartphones without GPS nowadays. There are plenty of applications that run well on them, for France I can think of three which are inexpensive or free and display standard charts. There is an excellent German/Swiss one
http://www.flugbetrieb.com/
You just need a place to fix it and learn how to use it. The latter is less easy than it seems as they all use touch screens which can be fiddly in flight.
Simon

Excellent thread revival, but the topic is always a good one

You probably need reading glasses to use a phone for satnav. Mine (Samsung s7) will do it all but is painful to use. However it is the only “tablet” device I have ever had which has never shut down due to heat.

Peter wrote:

You probably need reading glasses to use a phone for satnav.

Well, that depends on the software used. There are some quite good (and cheap) options for phones.

This is very readable even on small screens.

I just need a compass, an altimeter, a wrist watch and a star to steer her by.

Probably not