Is the GPS issue that big of a deal for you?

[tdusen]

That's good to hear, I'm glad it's working well TWO YEARS after it was released. Were you an early adopter? If so, you don't remember all those GPS problems everyone blogged about in the begining? I can give you the compass. I'd have to verify, but more than likely, there's not really a compass in the Captivate. It's an amalgum of GPS positions that give you a "heading". Which would make sense - if the GPS is slow to lock, the "compass" would be slow to give you a heading.

I wasn't the original owner, but I've owned it for about 18 months. I'm on ATT. I had to unlock a T-Mobile G1. (No 3g for me). It had a stock 1.5 install. All I know is that the first time I used any GPS software I was amazed at how much better it was than my Tilt.

Lock speed has never been my problem, it's the speed and accuracy that I have an issue with. Yesterday, I was driving and running MyTracks. When I got home, the phone was drawing the track about a mile behind where I was. It eventually caught up. When I stop at a light, it takes 30 seconds for my speed to register 0. These are just not things that should be wrong in the Top of the Line phone.

 

[jmreed97]

That's good to hear, I'm glad it's working well TWO YEARS after it was released. Were you an early adopter? If so, you don't remember all those GPS problems everyone blogged about in the begining? I can give you the compass. I'd have to verify, but more than likely, there's not really a compass in the Captivate. It's an amalgum of GPS positions that give you a "heading". Which would make sense - if the GPS is slow to lock, the "compass" would be slow to give you a heading.

The captivate does have a compass; I had some issues with it but they were minimized by moving the phone in a quick figure 8 as the app COMPASS suggested for "Calibration."

The compass works for general north south east and west but it is off by a few degrees from time to time.

 

[tdusen]

I have been using my Captivate for geocaching for the past two weeks. It is working fine for me. Almost all the time I am in the open, I get 5m accuracy and even in a little tree cover. I leave the wireless network option on. I think the issue is that the sensitivity is not as sensitive as better phones or GPS units. It is better than my Etrex Legend. I don't have another phone to compare with though.

Dan

I have too, and I limped by. The lack of a consistent lock and the sluggish compass are just frustrating. For example, I parked 250 ft from a cache. Got the direction and headed to the cache. I walked the 250 ft, by my Captivate still said had 250 ft to go. When my G1 says the cache is 3 ft away, I can usually touch it.

OT: if you haven't already, try GeOrg. It's just great

 

[MrTony]

Yesterday, I was driving and running MyTracks. When I got home, the phone was drawing the track about a mile behind where I was. It eventually caught up. When I stop at a light, it takes 30 seconds for my speed to register 0. These are just not things that should be wrong in the Top of the Line phone.

I have to admit, I did have this issue today. I did a My Tracks route on my motorcycle and hit 130+ mph several times and My Tracks showed my top speed was only 78mph. It's update rate obviously couldn't keep up with my varying speeds.

 

[ruppert]

The gps is a very big deal for me. I use the gps in my phone to track my runs and bike rides. I had the iphone 3g and the aria before the captivate and the gps was basically perfect on those. The captivate GPS is completely useless for this. My track will swerve and jump throughout the entire route and give me a completely inaccurate distances and speeds. I bought this phone expecting that it would have a GPS that was at least as good as the 3g which came out two years earlier or the aria that is half the phone hardware wise.

Navigation has performed adequately for me, I assume because that app locks my position to the road, but for anything else it is unusable. I'll have to return it if the problem isn't addressed by the 18th.

 

[Galroc]

The GPS is a big deal for me. I use a tracking application for when I run and bike. The GPS worked fine on my iPhone 3G. The GPS works like crap on the Samsung Captivate.

http://runkeeper.com/user/kbellve/activity/11325053

 

[baddress]

Maybe people should start pestering news sites and the big blogs to blow this issue up into the mainstream?

 

[keplenk]

Maybe people should start pestering news sites and the big blogs to blow this issue up into the mainstream?

I've been pestering Gizmodo and Engadget everyday since last week. I'm lucky I haven't good banned yet. Unfortunately, this isn't news to them (Captivate/Vibrant GPS issues). If it was an iPhone news, they would literally stop what they are doing and get right in to it pronto.

Heck the iPhone 4 review took them like almost instantly when it got released, the Vibrant and Captivate took them 1 week before the made a post about it. The only blog sites that post about this issue are Android sites.

But I agree with you, lets pester them more. Which reminds me, I have to do it again today, lol.