• After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.

All Things GPS

Did JI5 fix your GPS?

  • Yes, totally fixed my GPS!

    Votes: 15 35.7%

  • No, still having problems with GPS!

    Votes: 21 50.0%

  • Worked at first, then performance declined once again!

    Votes: 6 14.3%
  • Total voters
    42
I wonder how many users of the Galaxy S phones are getting the problem. Personally, I believe it may seem worse than it really is. I know there is an issue with the GPS but I still think the phones other features outweigh this one con that will likely be fixed.

Have you guys checked to see how good the GPU is compared to a Droid X? Not even close.
 
Mark27 said:
I wonder how many users of the Galaxy S phones are getting the problem. Personally, I believe it may seem worse than it really is. I know there is an issue with the GPS but I still think the phones other features outweigh this one con that will likely be fixed.

Have you guys checked to see how good the GPU is compared to a Droid X? Not even close.
Click to expand...

Not only is the GPU fast, but the actual hummingbird outperforms any other 1ghz chip out, including the DroidX chip.

I love love my phone, I just want the GPS to be resolved. I am confidant it will with a new firmware release. Even if it turns out to be hardware based, Samsung has got to replace these for us one day when they get working ones in production.

The only thing I disagree with you on is the severity of the problem. You say it seems worse than it might really be, I think it is the opposite. I think the problem is mild right now, because so many ret@rds buy smartphones and never use the full functions of the phone. Case in point, I know so many girls who want a white iPhone 4 as soon as it comes out, yet none of them care to surf the net on it, use any of the apps in app world, or use any other functions a smartphone provides. They just want a cute white iPhone. So imagine how many of these similar ret@rds have purchased galaxy s phones, and never even tried google maps. I don't think this is an isolated case. I'm going to make a bold statment and say that 100 percent of the vibrant phones, and probably 100 percent of the galaxy s phones have defective gps. People who claim their gps works, probably are using wirless network to locate them, or they are lucky, its summer time, and they are able to navigate off 1 satellite.

Back to ret@rds, I was speaking to someone recently about the iPhone 4. I said, "you should stick with t-mobile, you will have unlimited internet, but if you go to At&t your data is capped at 2gb." She didn't even know what that meant, so I had to explain "if you listen to pandora, view many websites, send videos or emails with picture attachements, watch youtube, or use anything with lots of bandwith, you can easily go over 2gb, but with t-mobile you have unlimted access." She says "oh I won't be doing any of those things." I reply "then why do you want an iphone 4 so badly," her reply "because I just really want a white iPhone 4, they look so nice." Trust me this person has intelligence(biochemist in training), besides her really stupid intentions for wanting the phone. I guess when you work in a lab all day, you have no reason to use data, oh well. Maybe having a white iphone that she can just make phone calls on will make her happy.
 
So tonight on my way home from work I decided to use the GPS with Google Maps for the first time. Guess what? It worked perfect! It actually worked better than my car's Pioneer AVIC gps. The thing is though, I don't know exactly how these Android phones work with Google Maps. Does Maps rely on the GPS on the phone to work, or does it use cell phone towers? All I can say is it worked perfect, even seamlessly giving me new directions because I changed the route do to a traffic jam.

When I got home I put on GPS Test and noticed it had 13 satellites "in view", more than I've ever seen it detect. But, it said 0 were in use.:confused: I just started using GPS Test so maybe someone here can shine a little light on the subject. Btw, I'm currently in my basement still running GPS Test and it's still showing 9 separate graphs with varying numbers. The graphs are all gray though. I guess this means it's not getting a good signal?
 
I ran the gps test from inside my hotel room. I can't wait to try it from the road and see the difference. Some people say the signal is not as strong inside a building.
 
I just took some screenshots. The GPS on my phone now seems to be working better than ever as far as I can tell. My wife's is still dead though. It's obviously seeing quite a few satellites and is reading the altitude correctly. I saw 10 graphs running before this shot was taken. Oh and btw, HEAVY cloud cover and thunderstorms going on right now. Phone got a couple of drops of water on it. What I don't understand though is why all of the graphs are gray.

gpstest%201.JPG


gpstest%202.JPG
 
kbohip said:
So tonight on my way home from work I decided to use the GPS with Google Maps for the first time. Guess what? It worked perfect! It actually worked better than my car's Pioneer AVIC gps. The thing is though, I don't know exactly how these Android phones work with Google Maps. Does Maps rely on the GPS on the phone to work, or does it use cell phone towers? All I can say is it worked perfect, even seamlessly giving me new directions because I changed the route do to a traffic jam.

When I got home I put on GPS Test and noticed it had 13 satellites "in view", more than I've ever seen it detect. But, it said 0 were in use.:confused: I just started using GPS Test so maybe someone here can shine a little light on the subject. Btw, I'm currently in my basement still running GPS Test and it's still showing 9 separate graphs with varying numbers. The graphs are all gray though. I guess this means it's not getting a good signal?
Click to expand...

thanks for the usefull info. It may be a possibility that your wirless networks is on, so you were not actually using satelites, instead you were using cell phone towers to navigate, that may be the case, since you are locking in on zero towers.

try this.
menu > settings >location and security > "use wireless networks".... is there a check mark next to that? If so, take the check mark off, go for another drive, see if navigation still works as accurately.
 
SamsungVibrant said:
try this.
menu > settings >location and security > "use wireless networks".... is there a check mark next to that? If so, take the check mark off, go for another drive, see if navigation still works as accurately.
Click to expand...

I'll try this tomorrow. What do you think of my GPS Test shots? From what I can see, it looks like my phone is having no problem at all seeing sats and getting readings from them. I can't be sure though as the graphs are all grayed out.
 
kbohip said:
I just took some screenshots. The GPS on my phone now seems to be working better than ever as far as I can tell. My wife's is still dead though. It's obviously seeing quite a few satellites and is reading the altitude correctly. I saw 10 graphs running before this shot was taken. Oh and btw, HEAVY cloud cover and thunderstorms going on right now. Phone got a couple of drops of water on it. What I don't understand though is why all of the graphs are gray.

gpstest%201.JPG


gpstest%202.JPG
Click to expand...

I wish we could take screen shots of our phone without rooting. I used to do that a lot with my iPhone.
 
Your screen shot shows that zero sat are being used. sorry.

today my phone only showed 2 sats max and only 1 most of the day, it was cloudy out all day and my old G1 was showing 13 and locking on 7-8. I'm calling for my return authorization tonight and sending it back. I would rather have a phone that works and is slow then a phone that doesn't work and is fast and flashy.

It really sucks that a company like Samsung doesn't send out a report about their problems and tell people what they are doing with an estimated time for a repair.
Instead they act just like government and say we are aware of the possible problem and we are working on it. this is like saying (you sucker, we'll get back to you when we feel like it, and we all know what that means.)

I'm pissed
 
SamsungVibrant said:
Not only is the GPU fast, but the actual hummingbird outperforms any other 1ghz chip out, including the DroidX chip.

I love love my phone, I just want the GPS to be resolved. I am confidant it will with a new firmware release. Even if it turns out to be hardware based, Samsung has got to replace these for us one day when they get working ones in production.

The only thing I disagree with you on is the severity of the problem. You say it seems worse than it might really be, I think it is the opposite. I think the problem is mild right now, because so many ret@rds buy smartphones and never use the full functions of the phone. Case in point, I know so many girls who want a white iPhone 4 as soon as it comes out, yet none of them care to surf the net on it, use any of the apps in app world, or use any other functions a smartphone provides. They just want a cute white iPhone. So imagine how many of these similar ret@rds have purchased galaxy s phones, and never even tried google maps. I don't think this is an isolated case. I'm going to make a bold statment and say that 100 percent of the vibrant phones, and probably 100 percent of the galaxy s phones have defective gps. People who claim their gps works, probably are using wirless network to locate them, or they are lucky, its summer time, and they are able to navigate off 1 satellite.

Back to ret@rds, I was speaking to someone recently about the iPhone 4. I said, "you should stick with t-mobile, you will have unlimited internet, but if you go to At&t your data is capped at 2gb." She didn't even know what that meant, so I had to explain "if you listen to pandora, view many websites, send videos or emails with picture attachements, watch youtube, or use anything with lots of bandwith, you can easily go over 2gb, but with t-mobile you have unlimted access." She says "oh I won't be doing any of those things." I reply "then why do you want an iphone 4 so badly," her reply "because I just really want a white iPhone 4, they look so nice." Trust me this person has intelligence(biochemist in training), besides her really stupid intentions for wanting the phone. I guess when you work in a lab all day, you have no reason to use data, oh well. Maybe having a white iphone that she can just make phone calls on will make her happy.
Click to expand...

Well, I can highly doubt 100% of Samsung Vibrants have this problem, or it most definitely wouldn't of been released. I am sure this phone was thoroughly tested at some point and the G.P.S. did work. If it is 100% percent, then there will definitely be a recall on the phone.

Ultimately, I see this is as win win. Okay so much phones GPS is not stellar, but the screen, GPU, and processor are. I cannot even think of practical uses of a G.P.S. for me are anyways, I never go out of town much, so this issue does not affect me as much as a worse processor, GPU, and screen would. (every second use)

I will test it out though, I do like all the features to work but am really not going to talked out of the phone but some users experiencing a GPS problem. I know several people who work at T-Mobile, a few being FAR more tech savvy than most and uses the Vibrant GPS religiously. He promises it works excellent and lives in the same city as me. So we will see.

One thing I have noticed over the internet, is people that have problems tend to flock to it. So you will always see more people bitching and complaining, than people finding this forum to praise the phone.

Also, a biochemist skill set has nothing to do with being aware of phone technology. You may be superior at utilizing and being educated at your phone, but she is successful at advanced problem solving and critical thinking. (I am an engineer major and tech the same GEN eds as most biochemists for Medical School)
 
Mark27 said:
Also, a biochemist skill set has nothing to do with being aware of phone technology. You may be superior at utilizing and being educated at your phone, but she is successful at advanced problem solving and critical thinking. (I am an engineer major and tech the same GEN eds as most biochemists for Medical School)
Click to expand...

Engineering majors don't really follow the pre-med classes. For example you guys don't need an entire year of ochem and ochem lab. You don't need two years of upper div bio with labratory. I mean unless you want to go into med school, then the pre-reqs are the same regardless of major, you can be a dance major and still need 1yr gen chem with lab, 1 yr ochem with lab, biochem and biochem lab, stats, 2 yrs bio with lab, etc etc. However, my eng friends who never went the pre-med route never had to take any of those classes.

My point was, so many people probably have broken GPS functionality on their vibrant and never even will know it, because they never use it. Others will just assume the sucky directions are the way all gps work.

I still believe every vibrant and every galaxy s phone has this problem. There are blogs and tech sites like this all over the world, from asia, to germany, the UK and the US, everyone is reporting GPS problems. I dunno thats just my thinking.
 
Just as an FYI - My wife's Vibrant shows all grey bars even when the GPS is working... You can see that in your pic the GPS has at least 3 sattelites in use because the GPS "light" is green. You also have an accuracy of 35.6 feet in that picture which means your GPS is working. If it wasn't getting a lock, the accuracy would say 0.0.

Perhaps your vibrant, like my wife's, doesn't show the satellites in use.
 
jmreed97 said:
Just as an FYI - My wife's Vibrant shows all grey bars even when the GPS is working... You can see that in your pic the GPS has at least 3 sattelites in use because the GPS "light" is green. You also have an accuracy of 35.6 feet in that picture which means your GPS is working. If it wasn't getting a lock, the accuracy would say 0.0.

Perhaps your vibrant, like my wife's, doesn't show the satellites in use.
Click to expand...
I'm pretty sure the green just means your vibramts gps is toggled on instead of off.
 
SamsungVibrant said:
thanks for the usefull info. It may be a possibility that your wirless networks is on, so you were not actually using satelites, instead you were using cell phone towers to navigate, that may be the case, since you are locking in on zero towers.

try this.
menu > settings >location and security > "use wireless networks".... is there a check mark next to that? If so, take the check mark off, go for another drive, see if navigation still works as accurately.
Click to expand...

On my long road trip my phone would alert me when it lost gps. The arrow also changed to a circle. So they would have known if they were using cell towers to navigate.
 
SamsungVibrant said:
Robo21 please test out your phone for us. Since you are having no problems, people like you are key in helping everyone else out.

Can you please go to settings, then location and security...then uncheck "use wireless networks." WIth this turned off, go for a spin in your car, and confirm the gps-navigation is still working.
Then can you download gps test from android market, and let us know how many satelites you are viewing versus how many are being locked/used. Take a pic of this screen or your phone and upload it for the rest of us.

I know some people thought there gps was working until they unchecked "use wireless networks" and navigation went dead. We wanna know if your phone gps works or is navigation just using your wireless network location to find you.

thanks
Click to expand...

Sorry it took so long to reply Sammy V. For some reason, even though I am subscribed to this thread with allegedly "Instant Email Updates" they are not coming through at all.

I had already unchecked the Wireless Networks option and the GPS worked at that time and does now. I will do more testing and post more. I've been a little under the weather so be patient.

[edit] Haven't installed "GPS Test" but had previously installed "GPS Status" also available at market. GPS Status at them moment only shows links to 2 of 10 birds but GMaps shows my correct location within a few feet. More to follow.

Thanks
 
WxAxGxS said:
Isn't that OS build date, not phone build date? I've yet to see anyone with any other time.... This would also be in line with the fact that all the other data is software/firmware related.
Click to expand...

You are correct, my phone build date according to the Samsung Product Registration page is 7/4/10 (they don't celebrate our Independence Day in Korea or they are workaholics) so this must be the OS version release date.
 
SamsungVibrant said:
So I missed this, I don't know if anyone else noticed, but on thursday samsung posted this on twitter.


https://twitter.com/Samsungservice/status/19861814931


They will tweet new info there, so I guess we should keep checking that twitter link, looks like they will post updates for us there.
Click to expand...

This is definitely good news. Hopefully they are actually working on a fix and not just blowing smoke here to try and keep the current owners from sending their phones back. Both mine and my wife's gps's are essentially useless.
 
I haven't done any driving today but I did use google maps to locate me- I've been testing it every day. It was way off. I used gps test and it showed 1 satellite in view and zero locks. In the same spot yesterday it showed around 10 in view and 2 locks. I am getting pretty anxious about this as I rely heavily on gps and will need it fully functioning.
 
OK, my experience for today (Sat. 7/31) is as follows:


1)Tried the "My Location" feature and it took about 3 minutes to show up, indoors at my desk in front of my monitor. Very accurate.

2)Went outdoors to the car the GPS worked almost instantly on fresh start up of Google Maps to locate me. Again very accurate location.

3)Navigated to get my hair cut about 3 miles away. No problem.

4)Restarted the phone from the barber chair and got an instant and accurate lock/location.

5)Got home and couldn't get a lock sitting in my driveway - I got the "waiting for location"/"Location Not Available" (or whatever) messages.

6)Went to my desk downloaded the update for Google Maps, opened Google Maps and got an instant lock/location even before the map graphics filled in, the blue dot appeared denoting my location. The map filled in shortly thereafter - all is well.

Makes no sense. But I have to say, when this little glitch gets fixed this is going to be one AMAZING device. And I am planning on sticking with the Vibrant. I may however consider exchanging this for another Vibrant if we find it is a QC issue. So far the GPS issue for me has been a small annoyance and DEFINITELY NOT yet a deal breaker, but that's because it has worked when I've needed it to work. I do understand it may not be working at all for some. That would be an issue in need of an immediate fix.


My barber told me a story about a female cat giving birth to a puppy dog. I thought "my God man, you've lost your mind..." So during the haircut I Googled "Cat Birth Puppy" and lo and freakin' behold, instantly there's a story and a quality video showing the very puppy. Needless to say my barber (a new Blackberry user) was blown away at the speed and image/text quality of the Vibrant. He actually stopped cutting my hair and stood there watching with his jaw dropped. Needless to say he was impressed with the video quality of Avatar as well.

And to think that on July 5th I swore I would never get a data phone. Now I would never want to be without one and expecially one as nice as the Vibrant. The big push for me came when I found that I had to have the full blown data ($25/month) to be able to receive my POP3 email. The Gravity 3 wouldn't do it with the lesser plan. The other factor that helped is that Tmobile gave me the Vibrant along with several accessories at no cost. Of course, I hadn't upgraded my old phone in 5 years so I had it coming I guess.

My main point is that so far this issue has only been a slight annoyance and then only intermittently, I wouldn't give up on this device over what I've experienced.
 
UPDATE: Late this afternoon we took another 30 mile round trip drive through South Pasadena and back home and the GPS worked perfectly. Not one glitch.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom