Help GPS signal routed through Verizon?

[Uker]

I am on the road now with my Droid X. I am in West Virginia. I used my Droid X's GPS on the drive here and all worked fine except for a few spots where I lost Verizon data connectivity. During that time the GPS stopped responding completely.

I am now in an Extended Network area. I have only voice capabilities on my phone - no data, no GPS etc.

Question: Why does my Garmin GPS work 100% of the time in all areas? It must communicate directly wth the GPS satellites. Does the GPS on the Droid X first route it's signal through the Verizon cell network before it hits the GPS satellite. If so, why? Sounds like a bad design to me.

 

[Uker]

Oh... I get it... then maps are not stored on the Droid X like on the Garmin. They are ownloade real time to the Droid X. Duh......

 

[dguy]

I believe there are GPS apps available that download the entire map set to your phone, but those apps are expensive.

 

[matty032]

Are you using the Verizon Nav, or the Google Nav?

 

[Uker]

Google

 

[aldo]

I believe there are GPS apps available that download the entire map set to your phone, but those apps are expensive.

MapDroyd does this and it's free. I've installed my state just as a backup in case. Of course there is no voice nav, but it works well.

 

[syntrix]

settings -> location and security.

Do you have Assisted GPS checked?

Google Nav does some caching, but not a lot. The developers have stated they are working on enhancing the caching function of nav.

 

[Theibault]

None of the phones have GPS built in. They get the signal from cell towers.

 

[mrempp]

None of the phones have GPS built in. They get the signal from cell towers.

they have gps built in, just not the maps. Google maps are downloaded from the network.

 

[Eryl Flynn]

Exactly, Google maps downloads maps from Google as needed. If you will be in areas with no data coverage you will need an application that stores the maps locally. These take up more space but will not rely on the network.

 

[Piiman]

I believe there are GPS apps available that download the entire map set to your phone, but those apps are expensive.

Hmmm that 8gb of internal storage we can't access and is going to waste would be a perfect spot for google to cache their map data. It doesn't need to be updated live.

 

[syntrix]

Hmmm that 8gb of internal storage we can't access and is going to waste would be a perfect spot for google to cache their map data. It doesn't need to be updated live.

You didn't read my post above **sigh**.

 

[dookie1]

Oh... I get it... then maps are not stored on the Droid X like on the Garmin. They are ownloade real time to the Droid X. Duh......

exactly.

 

[tackaberry]

I am getting my X Tuesday (hopefully, unless there is a shipping delay) and I am very excited about having a GPS in my phone. Am I going to be disappointed? I live in New Jersey and go to school in Philadelphia, both major areas of Verizon's network.

Should I be expecting frequent drops in my GPS? Just looking for some insight from people with experience.

 

[dylo22]

I am getting my X Tuesday (hopefully, unless there is a shipping delay) and I am very excited about having a GPS in my phone. Am I going to be disappointed? I live in New Jersey and go to school in Philadelphia, both major areas of Verizon's network.

Should I be expecting frequent drops in my GPS? Just looking for some insight from people with experience.

No, you're good. As long as you have a data connection, your maps will download accordingly. The GPS connection is something separate all together.

 

[cousinscott]

yep, MapDroyd works great...

 

[dookie1]

gps works great. power hungry though. expect to lose charge while using nav, even when connected to (most) car chargers.

it would appear that *all* USB chargers, regardless of amperage, are limited to 500mA of current drawn by the X. the one you want is non-USB 'rapid charge' (ie: high amperage...at least 1A/1000mA).

 

[Piiman]

You didn't read my post above **sigh**.

Sorry I didn't have time to fully read the complete tread. Don't take it personally.
I'm just a little upset we have 8gb of wasted space on the phone. And this would be perfect for it. And while they're at it they could make the camera save video and pictures there but then they would have to give us access to it but for some reason they don't want to.

 

[edgeman4]

Another vote for mapdroyd. As a backup to having google maps, it works great. No navigation or anything like that but it will show you where you are based on your phones GPS and the apps own maps (which you download prior to going out of coverage of course). I just have a map of California where I live but it's easy enough to download maps for new places I may be going. California map was about 100Mb so I imagine other states to be similar in size.

P.S. Try to download maps over wifi, it goes much faster.