So long fellow "Captivaters"

[jblaze5779]

Part 2 of Testing my theory (needing more juice for GPS to run properly)...

This morning I drove to work and started GPS (on battery only) to navigate to work.

From my driveway to the end of my street, was about 100 yds. Phone continued to search for GPS.

Put it on the charger, instant lock to GPS. Accurate, showed me passing a side street as I was passing it.

So I think using GPS on battery will cause accuracy and lock issues.

Once on charger, GPS works perfectly.

So does this mean it's a hardware issue? Or a battery issue? Or software issue? Can anyone offer some insight?

OK I noticed this too on Saturday. I plug the phone into the charger and I've got a lock within seconds and I can navigate using the google turn by turn. As soon as I take it off the charger I lose the lock and my accuracy falls.

I wonder if the gps chip is under powered while on battery alone.

 

[Endoran]

The underpowered while on battery GPS chip makes a lot of sense. Still poor testing by Samsung but something software should be able to fix. BUT, hate to bring this up again, what about the people that state their GPS works fine? Are their GPS chips somehow getting enough juice? Or are they just lying? Mine works fine and I'm not lying so

 

[nicracine]

The underpowered while on battery GPS chip makes a lot of sense. Still poor testing by Samsung but something software should be able to fix. BUT, hate to bring this up again, what about the people that state their GPS works fine? Are their GPS chips somehow getting enough juice? Or are they just lying? Mine works fine and I'm not lying so

Easy enough. I don't think I've ever used my GPS without plugging the phone, as i use it only in my car.

...

So I went outside the house (I could never get a lock inside), and lo and behold, I got a lock after maybe 30 seconds.

This can mean two things:
- It is not a hardware problem. so the plug-unplugged theory is less plausible. Unless a software glitch regulates the current differently when the phone is plugged.
or
- It is indeed a hardware problem, only it applies only to AT&T phones. It could happen since the US Captivate and the Canadian Captivate do not have the same number (i896 vs i897). Maybe Samsung detected the problem and corrected it on our version.

I'll leave that question to more knowledgeable people.

Nicolas Racine

 

[ranova]

I gave up with the Captivate, bought an ATT nexus one and love it!

 

[gcobb]

My Captivate works fine, GPS, volume and all that. People should be patient enough to learn how their phone works.

 

[Squee393]

Yeah I have to admit there are some weird things with this phone. When it works it works well but there are times are want to throw it against the wall.

Hahaha yeah.

 

[jblaze5779]

I will add that I bought my phone on launch day in the US.

 

[Captain19]

Wow. Those of you that are thinking about defecting to the Win7 phones should visit the Win7 phone forums and see the nightmares there. I'll stay with my Captivate that works great and looks great. Windows should never be on a smartphone. What were they thinking? These new windows phones will go the way of all the rest of the win phones from the past. Microsoft should just give up on cell phones.

 

[sremick]

Wow. Those of you that are thinking about defecting to the Win7 phones should visit the Win7 phone forums and see the nightmares there. I'll stay with my Captivate that works great and looks great. Windows should never be on a smartphone. What were they thinking? These new windows phones will go the way of all the rest of the win phones from the past. Microsoft should just give up on cell phones.

Yeah I pretty much called that one before the thing was even released.

Problem is, any platform has its quirks... some more than others... but people always dream that the platform-not-yet-released is somehow going to be the miracle silver-bullet that is bugless and solves all their woes. Until it actually does get released, and they're faced with reality.

Unfortunately, people gave more weight to their hopes and dreams than Microsoft's track record while thinking about Windows Phone 7.

 

[Chris_Marie]

I wonder if the CLA had the effect of being a passive antenna? I've heard that if you hold a phone against your forehead or chin while searching for a GPS signal, it locks quicker. Haven't tried that. I do know when I hold my garage door opener to my chin, it seems to do a better job getting the door to open that when I try to use it normally. Any thoughts?

Great laugh. Thank you. Reminds me of all the stuff some of us do to get the job done-anything from putting on mascara (me) to working on cars (dh).

 

[BookLover]

I wonder if the CLA had the effect of being a passive antenna? I've heard that if you hold a phone against your forehead or chin while searching for a GPS signal, it locks quicker. Haven't tried that. I do know when I hold my garage door opener to my chin, it seems to do a better job getting the door to open that when I try to use it normally. Any thoughts?

Sorry for the hijack...This was on an episode of The Closer. Flynn put a car alarm to his chin and activated it to find a car they were having trouble finding in a parking lot. It worked. Funny as heck.

Back to regular programming.