Help Anyone get the Canadian Galaxy S Vibrant?

[jmreed97]

If you got it, how is the GPS? How many satellites does GPS Test see vs. use? What is your accuracy? How long does it take to get a lock? Is it usable for navigation? How well does mytracks follow you?

I am hoping Samsung is close to working out the problems with this new model.

 

[GreatWhiteVibrant]

I am getting my vibrant tomorrow, I have the same questions as you

I do know the Canadian Vibrant has 16gb internal memory, and a front-facing camera for video calling, although Bell's description is fairly confusing: It looks like the "Video Calling" might be with Facebook only, although I hope that's not the case.

It's Bell only at the moment, and nobody so far has been able to unlock it. Good thing I'm renewing with Bell anyways...

 

[jmreed97]

I am getting my vibrant tomorrow, I have the same questions as you

I do know the Canadian Vibrant has 16gb internal memory, and a front-facing camera for video calling, although Bell's description is fairly confusing: It looks like the "Video Calling" might be with Facebook only, although I hope that's not the case.

It's Bell only at the moment, and nobody so far has been able to unlock it. Good thing I'm renewing with Bell anyways...

Cool! Let us know how it is!
I

 

[SunDogBC]

I got one for my wife (my upgrade's not until November) this past Saturday and there are only a couple of things noteworthy:
1) The Bell.ca description says that camera has a flash but it does not.
2) I only tried the GPS once and it was pretty accurate from what I could tell. But don't ask me how many satellites, etc.
3) The live wallpaper sometimes goes from full screen to a small rectangle. It seems to do this most frequently after viewing pictures.
4) To enable USB disk mode, you have to go to Settings->About Phone->USB Settings (if memory serves correctly). I would have expected it to be under Connections.
Those last two things might not be specific to the phone but I have no way of knowing.

 

[GreatWhiteVibrant]

So I posted in the GPS topic about how my testing went, I'll copy it here so you guys can take a look too.

The phone does not have a flash SunDog, but it has something better: A night-time mode like mid-high end cameras that takes better pictures than some tiny flash that illuminates 3 meters around you and looks unnatural.

Here's my post from the GPS topic:

"Note: Please bear with me, this is my first device with GPS. For all my tests, Wi-Fi was enabled.

The short version: Unless it's just my phone, Canadian's Vibrants GPS seems to work fine.

The long version: So I did a bunch of testing now that I actually have my Vibrant (I have the Canadian Bell version), and although I am new to the whole GPS usage, it seems to me that my Vibrant (and hopefully other Canadian ones too) works fine.

I did 3 tests, 1 practical (Navigation App), 1 game-oriented (Zombie Run), and 1 application that tested my GPS's ability to lock onto satellites (GPS Test)

The Navigation worked fine, I was able to get accurate directions to places, and my location was shown as only about 20 meters from where I actually was standing. Google Maps showed perfect 3d images of the locations I searched, although from I read this may not be an indicator of a working GPS system.

The Game, Zombie Run, worked perfectly as well. My location on the map moved when I moved, and the location was again, very close to where I actually was.

GPS test took a while to find enough satellites to lock on to, but when I did, there was 7 sats and I was locking on to 4 or 5 at a time, after about a minute. There were a few seconds when the bars turned gray and it said 0 of these were in use, but it jumped back up to 4 or 5 shortly. Since the practical testing went well, I can assume (or hope) that this means that the GPS is actually working.

Perhaps there is hope, after all?"

 

[warfanax]

Everyhing works well on mine though. I was also so concerned about the GPS but now I am okay with it cuz it works excellent. Today I used GPS test program and it showed 8 satellites and I was connected to 7 of them. This was the result under the clear sunny sky though.

It doesnt lock when I am inside the buildings I dont know if its normal for a gps. I assume its very normal because m brothers iphone 3gs can't lock either.

Overall everything works...

 

[Geryatrix]

Just a quick comment, GPS will not normally lock inside buildings, nor inside the body of cars. The signal from the satelites is fairly weak, and the aerial on a phone is not very efficient, so the best lock is always when you have good line of sight to a large sector of the sky, and if you are using it in a car, when the phone can see up through the windscreen.

 

[lineobird]

I am having problems with the GPS on the Vibrant (Bell) in the Toronto area. It initially takes about 3 or 4 minutes to lock on outside with a clear line of sight to the sky. When I am using Google Navigator, it frequently loses the lock (GPS signal lost) especially when driving. When I am stationary it seems to maintain a lock. The accuracy of the positioning seems OK, but I have not extensively tested it with the GPS Test application. The compass works fine.

They are going to start selling a car mount for the phone, but for me that would seem to be pretty useless since it doesn't function well when driving. It doesn't get a lock anywhere indoors, but I guess that's expected.

I hope Samsung's September software fix will not just be for "GPS on US Galaxy S", as was announced on twitter and include us Canadians too.

 

[warfanax]

Just a quick comment, GPS will not normally lock inside buildings, nor inside the body of cars. The signal from the satelites is fairly weak, and the aerial on a phone is not very efficient, so the best lock is always when you have good line of sight to a large sector of the sky, and if you are using it in a car, when the phone can see up through the windscreen.

Exactly...

 

[xopher]

Hey!

I am planning to pick up one of these this saturday from a local bell. However, im currently signed up with fido. Someone said nobody has been able to unlock this phone from bell. Is this true?

Im new to the whole smartphone thing. Do i need internet to connect the GPS?

Answers will be greatly appreciated!

 

[emdoe]

Initially I could not manage to make "My Location" work in google map. As soon as finishing downloading/installing some apps from Samsugn App Store (using the icon on the Phone), GPS works great now. There was runmour in Korea that Samsung secretly fix some problems in the phone when customers download other apps from Samsung apps store. I think this was my case.

 

[x35-Falcon]

I have had this phone for a week. First thing first ... update the phone (seems to fix GPS interaction with google maps) GPS works well, as far as how many sat... I am not sure because i am not willing to pay for the Telenav GPS Navigator subscription when gps /w google maps is not all that bad. Must get / use "Google Goggles" coolest app so far ... still need to figure out how to get it to price check canadian price and stores ... (since i believe the price match is giving me US prices with US stores and online stores)

 

[x35-Falcon]

I am having problems with the GPS on the Vibrant (Bell) in the Toronto area. It initially takes about 3 or 4 minutes to lock on outside with a clear line of sight to the sky. When I am using Google Navigator, it frequently loses the lock (GPS signal lost) especially when driving. When I am stationary it seems to maintain a lock. The accuracy of the positioning seems OK, but I have not extensively tested it with the GPS Test application. The compass works fine.

They are going to start selling a car mount for the phone, but for me that would seem to be pretty useless since it doesn't function well when driving. It doesn't get a lock anywhere indoors, but I guess that's expected.

I hope Samsung's September software fix will not just be for "GPS on US Galaxy S", as was announced on twitter and include us Canadians too.

is this a DT Toronto issue (Big tall buildings next to no line of sight to the sky?)
Also note that this is a phone ... if you need GPS to drive I would stick to a good old GPS, it is a matter of having the right tool for the job. I would only use this phones GPS for reference if i am out here hiking the Rockies and need to give my lat and Long to Search and rescue or if i was on my phone and needed to explain to the person i was talking to streets around the area i am in where they could pick me up from ect ...

 

[lineobird]

is this a DT Toronto issue (Big tall buildings next to no line of sight to the sky?)
Also note that this is a phone ... if you need GPS to drive I would stick to a good old GPS, it is a matter of having the right tool for the job. I would only use this phones GPS for reference if i am out here hiking the Rockies and need to give my lat and Long to Search and rescue or if i was on my phone and needed to explain to the person i was talking to streets around the area i am in where they could pick me up from ect ...

Hi.
Well I've played with the phone both in downtown Toronto and a little bit North. When I was walking around downtown outside, I was able to get a lock in about 4 minutes the other day. 5 satellites were visible and 4 where in use with a 30m accuracy (GPS Test), although in practice when I was walking the blue triangle that shows your location in Google maps tended to float a bit and put me in some funny locations. Again, staying still for a while it would eventually get to be pretty accurate.

When I was driving north away from downtown along Bayview, I had my passenger hold the phone, had the sunroof open and had her hold the phone close to the front window. With Google Navigator, It would lose the lock many times and then take a few minutes to come back each time and have to recalculate the course. I know what your saying about using a dedicated GPS device in the car, but hey the phone does come with Navigator installed, so you would expect that you might be able to get some use out of it. What's the point of getting turn-by-turn directions when you're in an open field? My friend's Tom tom has no trouble in my car even when in the cup holder below the dash away from the window. Also, my friend's Blackberry can get a lock in downtown Toronto INSIDE his apartment!

There was one time when I first got the phone that I was standing outside near York Mills and Don Mills and I waited and waited and it just would not lock on to anything.

So the GPS works, just not as well as I might have expected.

I wanted to say that I really love this phone though - all my collection of music videos (MKV x264) files even in 720p play beautifully. I was fooling around with the Allshare application and was sharing mp3s and pics from my PC to the phone using SAMSUNG PC Share Manager on the PC. The mkv videos did not play this was though (streaming from PC). Some plain AVI files played. It's funny that the phone is capable of playing those x264 videos, but the Allshare program's video player couldn't handle them. I discovered a websharing app in the market that is really cool at transferring files to and from the phone using WiFi so that you don't have to connect the USB cable. I know you can do this with Bluetooth but my PC doesn't have Bluetooth.

 

[WORLD CHAMPION]

Bought this phone on the 13th through my local Bell outlet...suffice it to say I'm switching to the I4 ASAP. Coming from the god aweful HTC Touch I was initially impressed by many selling points on the SGS vibrant. Weight, expandable memory, larger screen, better Bluetooth software, price and availability.

What has really chaffed my @#$ is trying to figure out how on the 14th and 15th (a mere two days after purchase) I somehow managed to use 600MB of my 1GB data plan (apparently unheard of according to the Bell rep I purchased from)! Needless to say one of the major downsides to this phone appears to be no way to keep track of your overall data usage via the phone settings. As of yesterday I downloaded the Net Counter from the Market to try and keep tabs on the data issue but I'm usure how accurate it is.

Managing and erasing histories is another issue...again go to the app store and do yourself a favor, download History Eraser as the phone doesn't have or doesn't allow easy deletion or certain searchs.

Moving on, one of the features that comes preloaded is a supposed built in FM tuner but after using it to jog on the 15th for about 45 minutes or so (because nobody at Bell told me that I needed the Kies software to be able to sync and move contact and mp3 files from my PC) so I have to think it's pretty data intensive and may have contributed to some of the 600MB of usage.

Then there are the Samsung Kies software issues that appear to be well documented in other threads here. Now I'm not a tech geek & I don't know the first thing about going into my computer to do many of the thing suggested here but I did manage to sync my XP Outlook contacts after installing and downloading the update. However, there ended up being some unwanted consequences that have not made me happy.

My Outlook contacts ended up getting switched from being filed by last name to first and I have tried everything I can think to switch it back with no success and now it doesn't even seem to recognize my phone if I try to reconnect it.

I had printed all 139 pages of the user guide (god forbid they actually include it when you buy a phone) but it can be very vague on many of these points. A lengthy call into Bell data support has resulted in zero help or answers (they simply look at the user guide). I've never understood how a company can launch a phone and not have dedicated people trained in that phone for troubleshooting problems...the products are many and the knowledge thin. Apparently calls into Samsung themselves don't seem to yield any better results.

As I said I really like the phone and I think its a shame but I don't need to make another HTC mistake and have to live with it for 3yrs.

 

[4u2nvinmtl]

I bought my phone on the launch day 6th aug. from Bell. After showing the phone off to well over 100 friends not one could say something good about Bell Mobile service. So on the 14th day i tried to return it for a refund cuz none of the features the sales man sold me on worked. No visual voicemail app in Canada yet. Remote PVR app not working. NHL app doesnt work as well. I have a 3g Iphone with Fido and its on it's last legs so I offered Bell that I would buy the Vibrant because i had used more that 30mins of air time. They scam you hard at Bell by rounding to the min. So a one second long phone call where i get someones voice mail and hang up is a full min!!! They claimed I had 94mins of useage. My phone showed 32m:48s and they still wont let me cancel or return it. I had to drive to their head offices in Dorval and someone was nice enough to end my contract sell me the phone and unlock it!! Now I have my Fido sim in and it works. The 3g took a few APN settings to get working but its as fast as it was on Bell and the GPS has always worked with out a problem and i lock onto 4-5 normaly. The only problem I still have is getting my Visual Voicemail working because we cant download the VVM app from Android market place due to a Canadian IP. Kinda lame cuz i'm an American and it feels like discrimination from my point of view. Also the Who-Called feature from fido was working then stoped. (it text's me peoples phone numbers who called when i dont answer or my phone is off) I find it usefull because of the large underground city and lack of service in some spots underground. I also use the phone a lot and most days my phone is dead before i make it to the charger. If anyone knows the full and correct Fido APN settings it would be useful! I have a APN settings they all work with varying degrees of success.

 

[4u2nvinmtl]

Regarding you GPS questions I have not had any problems using it for navigation. It takes about as long as my Iphone 3g to lock on. Like i said above it locks on to 4 to 5 for me. I normally always have my GPS disabled to save battery life.

 

[Sc00ter]

Saw the phone at a Bell store and played with it a while. The AMOLED screen is insane !
I don't know why Bell chose this version...the T-Mobile version is way more nicer...

 

[ujack]

Hi

Got the phone a couple of weeks ago...

The screen is gorgeous and I'm very happy with the speed of the OS in general compared to an iphone.

Swype works really well for me, although I find it easier to type on the keyboard than with an iphone, particularly because there's less lag caused by software, and partly because the keys seem slightly bigger.

In general I love the phone; everything works really well, but I'm not going to talk any more about the good stuff, I'm just going to mention the bad ...



Unluckily after a couple of days mine just died, so I had to take it back to the store I got it. I spent literally 2 hours there, most of that time was caused by Bell's tech support being really useless. The guy in the store (which wasn't a Bell store) needed me to get an authorization code from Bell to say that we'd tried everything to get it working and that it was totally dead and needed to be replaced. The first 5 people we talked to were completely clueless and did everything they could to get us off the line. The 6th person was helpful although ironically his phone was super quiet so I could barely hear him, but when he put me on hold the adverts for Bell were incredibly loud.

Anyway, the gps as far as I can tell works really well outdoors and in the car as long it is near the window, and barely works indoors.

I have had the bug where the wallpaper becomes tiny, but not for a while.

The Kies software is crappy and won't work on Windows 64bit as far as I can tell. I don't think you can get it for Mac, but my experience with it on Windows made me not worry about it, I use the USB debug mode, which feels like a hack to setup, as it's a pretty normal use case.

The headphones that come with the phone are decent sound quality but they're the kind that plug in your ears, and they fall out when I'm walking along, which means I'll need to buy another pair. Does the Apple phones with mic work with this phone I wonder?

 

[Deleted User]

I've had the phone for about 2 weeks, and I love it. I've had the iphone, and to me, there's NO comparison in terms of functionality and personalization. The Samsung or Android OS is not crippled in any way in terms of allowing a user to do what they want. Including changing the battery or adding storage. Also, the ability to delete files or songs directly on the phone is great. Sending file attachments is also useful.

Pros: fast OS, beautiful screen, loads of intuitive features such as swype, Vlingo, brightness control, etc. Samsung Hub - ports all of my contracts into one location. Wireless synchronization with Facebook, GMAIL calendars and contacts.

Cons: GPS didn't work out of the box. Had to change a port setting in the firmware (instructions in this forum), and now the GPS works right down to the street view.

The Keis management software is so/so, but nowhere near as heavy as itunes. Data plan management is decent using the built in SIM app from Bell.

Be wary of the app market, especially the location software (GPS and Compass) will cripple the CPU and drain the battery quickly.

 

[DarthV]

Bought one on release day and loved it. Then tried to get into recovery/download mode and couldn't. Returned it a few days later. I'll wait and see how long it takes for a fix to surface.

 

[groan]

I updated to the newest firmware through Kies and now my GPS connects right away in Google Navigation though using GPS Test it does not show that it is connecting to satellites quickly at all.
Strange.
I'll see if i can find this port setting change you mention. If you know where it is a link would be great.
I'll post it here if I find it.

OK, Found it, i think:
http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/130869-tested-proven-gps-fix-samsung-captivate.html