All things GPS

Bob, could you help us all with some objective information?

Put your GPS in "standalone" mode. Run any GPS program that will show you the satellite signal strengths. What strength are you seeing for the satellite signals, with the GPS set down with a clear sky view?

And do you have any other "real" GPS available to compare those with, at the same time?

Does your GPS lock and function when it is on the front seat of the car, as opposed to being up on the dashboard under the windshield?

Rred said:

Bob, could you help us all with some objective information?

Put your GPS in "standalone" mode. Run any GPS program that will show you the satellite signal strengths. What strength are you seeing for the satellite signals, with the GPS set down with a clear sky view?

And do you have any other "real" GPS available to compare those with, at the same time?

Does your GPS lock and function when it is on the front seat of the car, as opposed to being up on the dashboard under the windshield?

Click to expand...

Sure. Take this for what it's worth. I don't know if these numbers are "good" but I do know that nav works great for me, every day.

So I went outside under the clear sky and walked around my neighborhood using GPS Test. I saw between 8 and 11 satellites at any time, locking between 6 and 8. Signal strength I saw was between 15 and 43. For locked satellites the strength was between 25 and 40. MOST of the time it was around 34 - 38, with some peaks over 40 and occasionally dipping down to high 20s /low 30s. Accuracy was 5-10 meters the whole time.

Using Google nav on the front seat of the car, I got lock and was "able" to use nav, but who the hell wants to do this? Buy a dash/windshield mount for 20 bucks for god sakes. I couldn't really look at it on the seat while I was driving so I had to turn the voice on. When I was able to glance at it it occasionally hopped or lagged a bit and the blue circle was visible and sometimes would get bigger, looking like the accuracy was often around 30 - 50 meters or more vs. when it is mounted on my windshield and there is usually no circle, or occasionally a small one indicating what looks like around 10 meters. It generally tracked me, but navigating on the seat by voice I would have missed a couple turns since it lagged a bit due to lesser accuracy.

Additional data points: In my house I can see 5-6 satellites and lock on 2-4 with strength in the mid to high twenties, occasionally getting to low 30s. Accuracy is usually 50 meters but can go to 10 meters occasionally.

Also, usually when I go out to my car and turn on google nav I almost always get a lock in under 10 seconds. I never see the gps icon blinking like it has lost lock while I am driving. I VERY rarely see a blue circle bigger than 10 meters, and really never bigger than what looks like 50. I have used it on cloudy/rainy days and it still worked fine, although I might see a small blue circle a little more often.

I bought a handlebar mount for my motorcycle last week and went for a long ride on Saturday. The nav was excellent the whole time. My tracks for my ride was also excellent, and cool to look at to review the ride.

This is a new stock captivate running JF6, haven't yet updated to JH7.

P.s. I plan on trying a golf GPS app in the next couple weeks if we get good weather. I bought a cup holder mount for a golf cart

As you can tell, one of the main reasons I bought this phone intending to use GPS heavily, and I wanted one that would work well, and I believe I have one.

Hope that helps.

Bob

Thanks, Bob. I did JH7 and it made no difference in the GPS. Added QuickOffice, but there were no earth-shaking changes in the phone.<G>

"MOST of the time it was around 34 - 38, with some peaks over 40 " Mine was more typically 30-35, solid "yellow"s but never a full "green", never a 40. In comparison, an obsolete Earthmate was *always* 10-20db stronger for every satellite.

I have a Nuvi, wouldn't plan to use the cell phone for car navigation, but there are times when someone says "Let's go to..." and my phone is with me. the Nuvi isn't, unless I was planning to take a trip with it. The phone is there for impromptu detours where I might want to use nav functions. If it will nav.<G>

Apparently there have been a lot fo consolidaitons and buyouts in the GPS chip business i nthe last two years, and Broadcom supposedly has become #1 now with tiny low-power chips that will do combinations (GPS+WiFi+FM) as well as plain GPS chips. I couldn't find out which one the GalaxyS group uses, but also couldn't find any complaints about the quality of Broadcom chips.

But those low signal-to-noise ratios say there's still something wrong about this implementation.

FYI, Gizmodo has a review up of the Samsung Focus, which appears to be basically a Galaxy S variant running Windows Phone 7. They don't go into great detail, but it appears the GPS doesn't work. Check it out:

Samsung Focus Review: The First Windows Phone That Matters

This, sadly, makes it seem a lot more likely to be a hardware issue, since it's a whole different OS. Although I suppose it's possible that they essentially ported the driver over from Android and brought the bugs with it. But it's amazing to me that after all that's gone on with the Galaxy S GPS in its many variants, that they are *still* releasing new models that suffer from the same problems.

As an addendum, on my way home from work tonight, I turned on GPS test for most of the drive. I was pretty consistently locked on to 8 satellites and three or four sats were typically 40 or over (green). The rest varied in the 30s, biased on the mid-to high 30s.

When I got home, I updated the phone to JH7. I haven't gone out to navigate yet, but GPS test outside my house looks pretty much the same as last night, if not a little better, with most locks in the high 30s/low 40s.

My initial reaction was that JH7 did not do anything to the detection of signal strength, but I guess I didn't expect it would. Beyond that, I don't have any expectations that nav will perform better since it pretty much performs close to perfect now.

If your GPS doesn't work, exchange it.

Bob

I actually have as of late. It's almost like one day, it just decided to work. I used to be able to see ONE satellite, no lock. Now I'm getting multiple satellites in a few seconds, locks on most of them, and it's putting me where I am within a few feet. Has anyone else seen improvement?

I was thinking about the WP7 phones having GPS issues seeing they were Galaxy-ish, this proves my concerns were right. I'm now starting to think this GPS issue is hardware related. First it was a driver issue, then how Samsung might have implemented something but seeing a WP7 (Different OS) with the same problem puts the final nail on the coffin.

pac0naut said:

I actually have as of late. It's almost like one day, it just decided to work. I used to be able to see ONE satellite, no lock. Now I'm getting multiple satellites in a few seconds, locks on most of them, and it's putting me where I am within a few feet. Has anyone else seen improvement?

Click to expand...

+1 I just noticed it yesterday.

Have people with newer manufacture dates been having better luck as far as GPS problems go? And maybe they have improved the manufacturing tolerances, or is it strictly a driver issue?

PhantomZen said:

Have people with newer manufacture dates been having better luck as far as GPS problems go? And maybe they have improved the manufacturing tolerances, or is it strictly a driver issue?

Click to expand...

I don't know, I have no idea what my manufacturing date is, I've had the phone for about a month now, I believe.

Engadget reviewed the Focus and found the GPS to be responsive. My Captivate is from Amazon and I'm doing 30 day exchanges until the thing starts working like it should.

I've had my cappy for a week. I've tried the GPS three times. I've used assisted GPS and the GPS alone. Overall, it's been pretty good. A couple times it put me 50 feet away from where I was, but recovered in a hurry. No worries here. Perfect? No. Acceptable? Sure. Maybe if I'm in the boondocks it'll be more important.

PhantomZen said:

Have people with newer manufacture dates been having better luck as far as GPS problems go? And maybe they have improved the manufacturing tolerances, or is it strictly a driver issue?

Click to expand...

I got my first Captivate on launch day. GPS did not work well. Exchanged it in early August. The second one has worked without problems now for almost three months. I've used it with the wireless assist off and it works. I've used it with navigate and my tracks. Everything works.

I actually think it's improved slightly since JH7. Before the update it would not lock on satellites with signal to noise between 10 to 20. The phone locks on these weak signals after JH7. And generally the accuracy seems a bit higher.

My guess is that it's a hardware problem affecting some builds of the Galaxy S phones.


DW

I posted recently that I too have noticed a very dramatic improvement in GPS function. Oddly it didn't seem to happen immediately after I updated to JH7. I'm not really sure what happened, I just know it is working pretty darn good now.

People are just spoiled..thinking that a phone device should work like a tom tom. Coming from the N97 I think the Captivate is just fine. Only thing I've noticed is it takes a bit to get a lock..up to 2-3 minutes..but once locked that accuracy and staying power is great. The N97 would lock quickly, but would be lucky to get 200 ft accuracy. I think the problem is in the Agps SUPL server. Give Samsung a break..the GPS is fine

fldude99 said:

People are just spoiled..thinking that a phone device should work like a tom tom. Coming from the N97 I think the Captivate is just fine. Only thing I've noticed is it takes a bit to get a lock..up to 2-3 minutes..but once locked that accuracy and staying power is great. The N97 would lock quickly, but would be lucky to get 200 ft accuracy. I think the problem is in the Agps SUPL server. Give Samsung a break..the GPS is fine

Click to expand...

People are just spoiled. They just expect their cars to work and not stall and have heat and A/C. You should see how people lived in the old days. They walked in the heat and the snow, for miles, and if they're lucky, they had horses.

And now people are bitching about chemotherapy being harsh on their bodies. People with cancer in the old days just died.

Calm down and be happy people.

ZDroid1 said:

People are just spoiled. They just expect their cars to work and not stall and have heat and A/C. You should see how people lived in the old days. They walked in the heat and the snow, for miles, and if they're lucky, they had horses.

And now people are bitching about chemotherapy being harsh on their bodies. People with cancer in the old days just died.

Calm down and be happy people.

Click to expand...

Wow, scathing, but I couldn't agree more

First post here- I have one sat. that does not lock with JH7. I have tried all the fixes and gone back to stock settings with no effect. Getting a replacement this week and will post any difference with the new phone. It was a refurb from AT&T and I am hoping the "new" refurb will work. Love the phone otherwise but I have to have GPS.

Visited local Best Buy to see if could find out if Captivate will be available for Best Buy free Friday [no luck].
Salesman [an ex-AT&T employee] said if GPS was important to me they were no longer recommending Captivate, said update JH7 did not solve problem and believed problem to be a malfunction hardware.

Have all of the GPS issues with the Captivate that I have read about been fixed? Users have reported, no lock, long to time to lock, losing lock, etc. Am considering a Captivate but I dont want a problem child with the main feature that is useful to me.

If you need the GPS on your phone, then don't get the Captivate. It's not fixed and no one knows if/when it's going to get fixed.
On their service facebook page, Samsung is blatantly ignoring any question or comment on GPS.
I personally don't think it's every going to get fixed.

Update on my last post--
New phone came today with old firmware. Same thing, only one sat. in view. Updated to JH7 and I had 8-10 sats with good locks and about 16' accuracy! Tested Google Nav while out and worked flawlessly.
I don't know what this confirms but I say keep returning your phone until one works correctly.

Well that's disappointing to hear. We're making the switch to At&T from Alltel and this is the only high end Android phone they have. Hopefully that changes by January but it doesn't appear that it will. Will probably be looking at Windows 7 or iphone. I want HD video capability and must have independent GPS for backcountry use. I have a Hero now and like it, but the processor is a tad slow and the camera totally sux!

no more samsung phones for me after this BS, too much hit or miss.

With the update my GPS works fine. It's hit and miss with everyone, some people the update fixed the GPS issue, others it did not. The phone is fantastic, don't let the GPS be the deciding factor.