Gps?

[angieutc]

Howdy!

I have a droid charge on the way which I am very, very excited about. However, I am nervous about the GPS.

Does the Charge have a good GPS experience? How fast does it lock? Can it get below 20ft?

I tell you for all the crap I went through with the Revolution, it did have excellent GPS!

Thanks!

 

[Gravytrain]

I'm also curious about this. I'm coming from tbolt which couldn't lock in less than a half a mile away.

 

[GunnerJim]

The Droid Charge GPS is better than some GPS, I think the HTC incredible 1 and 2 had the best of all Smartphones I have owned or tested. The LG Revo was good, but on par with the Charge, It takes me 2 minutes to lock up GPS signal and it is within 60-100 ft of where I am at. So if extreme accuracy is what you want, it is not a perfect bullseye. I think the Charge is better than my TomTom and Magellan GPS units in comparison. Hope this helps, navigation on the road is pretty good. Geo-Caching, maybe not so much.

 

[CalBearsFan95]

Had a HTC Incredible (1) first, now the Charge. Charge is just about as good, if that helps at all.

 

[Sintec]

My GPS is atrocious. My Incredible is flawless. I am hoping I just have a dud and can fix it with another Charge.

 

[GunnerJim]

Sintec, What do you have turned on? all three, two, or one GPS toggle boxes in Settings? Also do you have WIFI on? Just checking, I usually lock up a signal pretty quick when I have WIFI, Google, and Standalone checked on. I think the best Droid GPS is the Incredible 1, IMO, I could get within 20ft almost every time. The Charge is pretty good, I have had two now, the one I took back for the Revo, then the one I got as my final selection when I returned the Revo. The first one seemed to lag on locking up the satellites in San Diego. This Charge has no lag in locking on. It does work better when the sky is pretty visible to the device, closer to the windshield.
Hope that helps...

 

[s0n1c]

My GPS is atrocious. My Incredible is flawless. I am hoping I just have a dud and can fix it with another Charge.

I second this. My DInc was flawless on GPS and navigation. But now the charge is hideously inaccurate. I was using it yesterday and once it finally locked, it was going the wrong way down the street. I was definitely heading north, and it had me going south. I have all of the GPS options turned on, and I've tried clearing the GPS cache, and I've tried other GPS alternatives. All of them seem to work for about an hour and then it goes back to total crap.

 

[twistedlim]

I second this. My DInc was flawless on GPS and navigation. But now the charge is hideously inaccurate. I was using it yesterday and once it finally locked, it was going the wrong way down the street. I was definitely heading north, and it had me going south. I have all of the GPS options turned on, and I've tried clearing the GPS cache, and I've tried other GPS alternatives. All of them seem to work for about an hour and then it goes back to total crap.

Funny you say that we were using the gps in my wifes dinc and it had us going the wrong way.

 

[Sintec]

Sintec, What do you have turned on? all three, two, or one GPS toggle boxes in Settings? Also do you have WIFI on? Just checking, I usually lock up a signal pretty quick when I have WIFI, Google, and Standalone checked on. I think the best Droid GPS is the Incredible 1, IMO, I could get within 20ft almost every time. The Charge is pretty good, I have had two now, the one I took back for the Revo, then the one I got as my final selection when I returned the Revo. The first one seemed to lag on locking up the satellites in San Diego. This Charge has no lag in locking on. It does work better when the sky is pretty visible to the device, closer to the windshield.
Hope that helps...

I've tried all 3, just the 2 (not verizon), with and without wifi. I have 2 issues...sometimes its right on the money as far as the dot and the path i have to follow, but for whatever reason it still says "searching for gps." Othertimes it just has the huge circle with the dot and its roughly near my location, but still says searching for gps. I have literally only had it lock on once to where it had the blue arrow. I have easily tried 10-15 times now.

EDIT: Turning WiFi on certaintly helps, whether it connects to an actual network or not, but it still never locks on, just is more accurate. I'm going to post some screenshots later so you can see exactly what I am talking about.

 

[GunnerJim]

I think the wifi signal it picks up knows the ISP who provided the signal "Finger Print" that is mapped out and it aids the GPS to get you in the ballpark. Sintec, Would love to see your screenshots, hope things get better for you.

 

[Sintec]

Here's the screenshots:

With WiFi on

Without WiFi

 

[Yankees368]

It's fairly bad. In the same spot indoors with a window in the room, my Droid X can get a lock in no time, but the Charge never does. You pretty much have to be outside to use it.

 

[bentwrench]

Elevation is not even close but location is darn close. I'm not sure why the elevation is not correct. Maybe it is the app I am using.

 

[Coffee Monkey]

I've had my Charge about a month. The GPS seems to work fine for driving. I used it in AZ, IN, and NM. But altitude is way off. I live in Albuquerque at around 5640 feet elevation and two different apps report my altitude at around 565 feet. So either it's off by around 5000' or they got the decimal point in the wrong place and it's reading 1/10 the actual altitude.

The two apps I tried are "GPS Test" and "AndroSensor". With 10 satellites in view and in use, GPS Test reports that accuracy is 36 feet. Which is a crock since it's almost a mile off in altitude!

I'm going to take it to a Verizon store and see if they have any answers.

 

[DocBeech]

My gps takes about a min and averages 40ft. Never made a mistake. I use google maps.

 

[ItsAboutTime]

My gps takes about a min and averages 40ft. Never made a mistake. I use google maps.

That sounds great!! Are there any other Droid Charge GPS reports, good or bad?

 

[MaxBuck]

I'm certainly not pleased. I was able to use golf GPS programs with my old Fascinate, but not with this phone; it's off a minimum of 30 yards, which makes that application totally useless. And using geotagging for photos is similarly useless.

Very disappointed in this phone's GPS performance.

 

[iClark]

I'm extremely please with mine. Although I haven't used it a ton.... it has locked within 5 seconds every time I have used it.

 

[SoonerLater]

The GPS on Droid Charge seems to be MUCH slower to lock than the GPS in a Droid-X, regardless of the settings used. Furthermore, I have to hold the Charge out to the windshield (to give a clearer view of the sky), whereas the Droid-X would get a good GPS lock even under conditions that seemed nearly impossible.

 

[moondrius]

After the latest update and data wipe my gps is damn near perfect. I am running gummycharged 1.8 and it might include something to improve gps performance but either way if you are having issues try a factory reset. I went from very long waits for lock to under 10 seconds when I am out doors.

 

[rsparkyc]

After the latest update and data wipe my gps is damn near perfect. I am running gummycharged 1.8 and it might include something to improve gps performance but either way if you are having issues try a factory reset. I went from very long waits for lock to under 10 seconds when I am out doors.

with gummycharged, does it show your proper altitude? I know my charge is totally off with the altitude.