All Things GPS

[spiz]

Check this out. As I mentioned, everyone's eyes are different, so everyone sees something different when looking at "whites." I'm convinced that the term "white" is relative and subjective in terms of what the human eye can see.

LCD vs. LED monitor - Neowin Forums

Notice this person sees the LED display as being "pure white" while the LCD display seems yellowish to him? My eyes are the same as this guy. But yours may being seeing more blue.

 

[SamsungVibrant]

Check this out. As I mentioned, everyone's eyes are different, so everyone sees something different when looking at "whites." I'm convinced that the term "white" is relative and subjective in terms of what the human eye can see.

LCD vs. LED monitor - Neowin Forums

Notice this person sees the LED display as being "pure white" while the LCD display seems yellowish to him? My eyes are the same as this guy. But yours may being seeing more blue.

I'm not using a relative definition of white . I'm putting my vibrant next to other vibrants and comparing the screens. My vibrant is blue next to others. Also if you look up youtube videos, and pictures from other forum members, some owners who baught more than 1 vibrant, have videos/pics of their multiple vibrants next to eachother...1 vibrant being perfectly fine, while the other is blue.

Actually I think it was pics, try searching xda forums. There was a guy who had multiple galaxy s phones, some had the blue tint, others didnt.

The only reason I'm not doing an exchange is because i read it might fade with time, and that the blue oleds fade really fast and die off, thats why samsung made the phones more blue on purpose. so i'm not sure if this is true, if it fades then great, then i have a really blue phone that will last longer. if it doesnt fade, then its blue forever

 

[spiz]

I'm not using a relative definition of white . I'm putting my vibrant next to other vibrants and comparing the screens. My vibrant is blue next to others. Also if you look up youtube videos, and pictures from other forum members, some owners who baught more than 1 vibrant, have videos/pics of their multiple vibrants next to eachother...1 vibrant being perfectly fine, while the other is blue.

Oh I gotcha. That is interesting. If it's bothering you, I'd recommend exchanging it. I know it's a pain, but there might be a hardware issue with yours. I know that every LED display can vary, including TV's, monitors, phones, etc... in color depending on the engineering, but if it's that obvious, I'd just see if a swap makes a difference.

 

[SamsungVibrant]

Oh I gotcha. That is interesting. If it's bothering you, I'd recommend exchanging it. I know it's a pain, but there might be a hardware issue with yours. I know that every LED display can vary, including TV's, monitors, phones, etc... in color depending on the engineering, but if it's that obvious, I'd just see if a swap makes a difference.

Ya but wikipedia, although not the best source says "Additionally, as the OLED material used to produce blue light degrades significantly more rapidly than the materials that produce other colors, blue light output will decrease relative to the other colors of light. This differential color output change will change the color balance of the display and is much more noticeable than a decrease in overall luminance.[56] This can be partially avoided by adjusting colour balance but this may require advanced control circuits and interaction with the user, which is unacceptable for some users. In order to delay the problem, manufacturers bias the colour balance towards blue so that the display initially has an artificially blue tint, leading to complaints of artificial-looking, over-saturated colors."

So if infact this blue tint was done on purpose to make the blue leds last longer, then i should consider myself lucky, that means my phones screen will last longer. But i don't know how true wikipedias above statement, because if samsung was really making screens more blue on purpose, why aren't all vibrants more blue.

Also, another reason i'm not exchanging my phone yet. my quadrant scores are crazy high, factory out of the box. I get in the 900's without any rooting or any weird tweeks, while other galaxy s owners are getting 700-mid to high 800's. I might just havea freak of a power vibrant with a super duper screen. lol i really don't know yet.

But ya lets talk about this in the blue tint thread, before GPS people get mad

Speaking of GPS, hopefully tomorrow twitter will have an update.

 

[Contraus]

You know, she was such an airhead, that I didn't even want to bother with her, nor did I want to shatter her little perfect image of the phone, plus she wouldn't even believe me, nor would she even understand what GPS test is. Even if I showed her google maps being off she would probably still not understand. I conveinently left GPS app on the main home screen of the phone, maybe other customers will walk in and run the app and notice zero satellites.

Something just dawned on me. It is a perfect gorgeus sunny Los Angeles day, as katy perry says, sunkist skin make your popsicle melt. LOL, anyway, on this gorgeus day I'm lucky if I get 1 satelite locking in. What is every vibrant owner going to do, when summer ends, the clouds roll in, it pours rain, and suddenly even those people who get maybe 3 satelites now, for sure they will get zero during winter time. Winter clouds are going to bring some pissed off Vibrant GPS owners.

To HELL with winter! I'm pissed off now! I use my GPS all the time. It's one of the main reasons I loved the G1 so much. I don't give a rat's ass how much the Vibrant can do. If I can't do GPS, then I don't want it...plain and simple.

 

[Contraus]

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.

Everybody please get up out of your seat right now and give this man a standing ovation. That was the most well put, true to fact statement I've ever seen. Thank GOD somebody else out there gets it.

 

[robo21]

To HELL with winter! I'm pissed off now! I use my GPS all the time. It's one of the main reasons I loved the G1 so much. I don't give a rat's ass how much the Vibrant can do. If I can't do GPS, then I don't want it...plain and simple.

This is ludicrous. The Vibrant does GPS and does it well. I can't believe so many are complaining. YES, occasionally but rarely it is slow to lock up for me, but guess what? My dedicated Garmin GPS is occasionally but rarely slow to lock up as well! Once locked I've not had any issues with the Vibrant GPS. I'm not saying you aren't having trouble, just that if you are, why get pissed? Just exchange your phone.

This phone does so many things so well that it's worth the effort IMO to get a unit you are satisfied with. Or maybe everyone who is complaining is testing their GPS indoors? Could it be that simple?

 

[Contraus]

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.

You are correct again Sir. Some people don't use the GPS feature. And some of those people claim their phone is perfect. But really, if they would pull their head out of their 4th point of contact, they would see the GPS is severely flawed. My G1 locked in less than 5 seconds EVERY TIME. And it was accurate EVERY TIME. I would trust my G1 if my life depended on GPS. I would NOT trust my Vibrant if my life depended on GPS. Simple as that.

 

[perpetual]

This is ludicrous. The Vibrant does GPS and does it well. I can't believe so many are complaining. YES, occasionally but rarely it is slow to lock up for me, but guess what? My dedicated Garmin GPS is occasionally but rarely slow to lock up as well! Once locked I've not had any issues with the Vibrant GPS. I'm not saying you aren't having trouble, just that if you are, why get pissed? Just exchange your phone.

This phone does so many things so well that it's worth the effort IMO to get a unit you are satisfied with. Or maybe everyone who is complaining is testing their GPS indoors? Could it be that simple?

I have tested the GPS in my vibrant a lot and for long periods of time. Fortunately I haven't had any of the problems mentioned in this forum. I'm sure the phone has GPS problems that should be fixed ASAP, but I also read posts of people testing their GPS functions inside their homes and complaining because it didn't function properly. I understand that occasionally you might be able to get a fix indoors, but this is not the norm. GPS, just like SAT/tv, is a line of sight technology and needs to have view of the sky in order to work properly.

 

[robo21]

I have tested the GPS in my vibrant a lot and for long periods of time. Fortunately I haven't had any of the problems mentioned in this forum. I'm sure the phone has GPS problems that should be fixed ASAP, but I also read posts of people testing their GPS functions inside their homes and complaining because it didn't function properly. I understand that occasionally you might be able to get a fix indoors, but this is not the norm. GPS, just like SAT/tv, is a line of sight technology and needs to have view of the sky in order to work properly.

Thank you, another voice of reason. It's tiring to hear all the whining about the "GPS issue" duh, exchange your freakin phone and get over it. Like you, I have extensively used the GPS on my phone and I've NEVER had a lost signal and only rarely had a slow lock. Clearly something else is at play here. Perhaps unreasonable expectations (e.g. expecting the GPS to lock instantly indoors) or perhaps unit to unit variation. Either way there is an easy fix - Exchange.

 

[robo21]

You are correct again Sir. Some people don't use the GPS feature. And some of those people claim their phone is perfect. But really, if they would pull their head out of their 4th point of contact, they would see the GPS is severely flawed. My G1 locked in less than 5 seconds EVERY TIME. And it was accurate EVERY TIME. I would trust my G1 if my life depended on GPS. I would NOT trust my Vibrant if my life depended on GPS. Simple as that.

Dude! I wouldn't trust ANY GPS with my life. But to each his own. Both the GM Navigation in my Chevy C6Z06 and my Garmin have led me astray on more than one occasion. If "my life depended on GPS" I wouldn't be here. If you are placing your life in the hands of ANY GPS unit perhaps it is your head that needs to be extricated from your 4th point of contact.

 

[SamsungVibrant]

Dude! I wouldn't trust ANY GPS with my life. But to each his own. Both the GM Navigation in my Chevy C6Z06 and my Garmin have led me astray on more than one occasion. If "my life depended on GPS" I wouldn't be here. If you are placing your life in the hands of ANY GPS unit perhaps it is your head that needs to be extricated from your 4th point of contact.

Okay thats being over dramatic. I don't think anyone is saying their life depends on GPS. Nor is anyone expecting the vibrant to navigate them out of the jungle when a pack of hungry wolves are after you. People just want to be able to use the GPS function on their phone to find the local starbucks and navigate quickly there, simple. Or maybe i'm stuck in traffic and I want to find a different quicker route. Or maybe i'm driving and someone calls and says "hey meet me at Shanghais for dinner," since I never being there i want to just use my phone for quick navigation. Nothing about life and death or being lost in the grand canyon.

 

[SamsungVibrant]

I have tested the GPS in my vibrant a lot and for long periods of time. Fortunately I haven't had any of the problems mentioned in this forum. I'm sure the phone has GPS problems that should be fixed ASAP, but I also read posts of people testing their GPS functions inside their homes and complaining because it didn't function properly. I understand that occasionally you might be able to get a fix indoors, but this is not the norm. GPS, just like SAT/tv, is a line of sight technology and needs to have view of the sky in order to work properly.

Perpetual, I have to respectfully disagree with what you stated. Although GPS does need a good view of satelites to work, this is not always the case.

Look I own several phones, every single one of them the gps works flawlessly indoors. You think I haven't sat here and put all my phones side by side and tested them after this entire fiasco? I also own a magellin and garmin, both locate me fine indoors. The only unit that fails to locate me is the Vibrant. So instantly this tells you that the vibrant is different from all the rest. Okay so lets take your reasoning and say that I must absolutely be outdoors, and that the vibrants gps is just super sensitive. Well guess what, when I walk outdoors, the vibrant still sees 9-11 satellites, and if i'm lucky locks onto 1. Now lets go for a drive in the car, again same issue. Also google maps/navigation fail to locate me properly. Yes my GPS does sometimes work, for about 10 mins, then google navigation says gps signal lost, and it keeps searching. Also yesterday I was driving on the 405 near sepulveda, where the 101 runs slightly parallel for like 30 seconds. The stupid gps thought I was driving on the 101 for like 10 mins when I was infact on a different freeway. This isn't a joke, the Vibrant has issues. I personally have played around with more than 1 vibrant, and not 1 of them was able to locate me properly on google maps. So going back to your outdoors vs indoors argument, if the vibrant truely needed a clear satelite path, then walking outside or going in my car, the number of locked on satelites should have increased, and it doesn't, nor does the real world accuracy of google maps improve.

Simly put, doesn't matter if you are outside or inside, the gps is failing. I bet if I took a spaceship up to the satelite and flew right next to the satelites in orbit, my vibrant would then think i'm on Mars.

 

[Contraus]

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.

Dude, what planet are you from? The green light means the GPS on the phone is turned on. If you gaze your blind eyes on the right side of the screen, you'll clearly see the phone is locking onto ZERO, not THREE. The 35 ft accuracy is easily achieved by using wireless/cell towers. But it's not completely reliable. If you're sitting in your house getting an accurate reading on your location, it's probably because you have "Use Wireless Networks" turned on. Turn it off, go outside, and see how many satellites you lock onto.

 

[Robinelli]

My GPS also sometimes thinks I am on another road and does the whole rerouting thing. It usually fixes itself within 5 minutes. But it is annoying.

 

[Contraus]

So Cal born and raised, Go Trojans!

Yeah, go trojans....pfff. Have a nice two year break from the bowl games. Oh, and have fun with Lane Kiffin. That guy is a real class act. Gators rule. Enough said.

 

[MaxPowers]

*sigh* I called to cancel my service within my 14 day window and because I had done a change of responsibility (my number was under someone else's name under a family plan before I took over and moved it to an individual plan) I am not authorized a remorse period. wtf...

 

[Contraus]

You wanna be first? Make the best phone that nobody has to take back and you will steal a lot of customers from Apple.

Amen brother....Amen.

 

[robo21]

Yeah, go trojans....pfff. Have a nice two year break from the bowl games. Oh, and have fun with Lane Kiffin. That guy is a real class act. Gators rule. Enough said.

LOL - that's your answer? OMFG... When logic fails baffle with BS? Yeah, go gators LMAO

 

[robo21]

.
I bet if I took a spaceship up to the satelite and flew right next to the satelites in orbit, my vibrant would then think i'm on Mars.

Now I understand...

 

[perpetual]

Perpetual, I have to respectfully disagree with what you stated. Although GPS does need a good view of satelites to work, this is not always the case.

Look I own several phones, every single one of them the gps works flawlessly indoors. You think I haven't sat here and put all my phones side by side and tested them after this entire fiasco? I also own a magellin and garmin, both locate me fine indoors. The only unit that fails to locate me is the Vibrant. So instantly this tells you that the vibrant is different from all the rest. Okay so lets take your reasoning and say that I must absolutely be outdoors, and that the vibrants gps is just super sensitive. Well guess what, when I walk outdoors, the vibrant still sees 9-11 satellites, and if i'm lucky locks onto 1. Now lets go for a drive in the car, again same issue. Also google maps/navigation fail to locate me properly. Yes my GPS does sometimes work, for about 10 mins, then google navigation says gps signal lost, and it keeps searching. Also yesterday I was driving on the 405 near sepulveda, where the 101 runs slightly parallel for like 30 seconds. The stupid gps thought I was driving on the 101 for like 10 mins when I was infact on a different freeway. This isn't a joke, the Vibrant has issues. I personally have played around with more than 1 vibrant, and not 1 of them was able to locate me properly on google maps. So going back to your outdoors vs indoors argument, if the vibrant truely needed a clear satelite path, then walking outside or going in my car, the number of locked on satelites should have increased, and it doesn't, nor does the real world accuracy of google maps improve.

Simly put, doesn't matter if you are outside or inside, the gps is failing. I bet if I took a spaceship up to the satelite and flew right next to the satelites in orbit, my vibrant would then think i'm on Mars.

Read my post again and tell me if I disagree with anything you said. I clearly stated that the phone does have issues with the GPS that should be fixed ASAP. I also stated that sometimes you do get a fix indoors with GPS devices but that this is not the norm. It's a lot easier for a GPS device to get a fix on you if for example you live in a ranch style house, but you shouldn't expect your any GPS device to get a fix on you if you live in a Colonial type style house. If you check most if not all manuals that come with GPS devices, they state that you need a view of the sky for them to work properly.

 

[robo21]

Read my post again and tell me if I disagree with anything you said. I clearly stated that the phone does have issues with the GPS that should be fixed ASAP. I also stated that sometimes you do get a fix indoors with GPS devices but that this is not the norm. It's a lot easier for a GPS device to get a fix on you if for example you live in a ranch style house, but you shouldn't expect your any GPS device to get a fix on you if you live in a Colonial type style house. If you check most if not all manuals that come with GPS devices, they state that you need a view of the sky for them to work properly.

Agreed, 100% with everything you have said. A rational and intelligent post. I believe that some, perhaps many, are experiencing issues. I suspect that a certain percentage of these "issues" (but by no means all) however are being created by unreasonably high expectations e.g. indoor GPS usage.

 

[MaxPowers]

Agreed, 100% with everything you have said. A rational and intelligent post. I believe that some, perhaps many, are experiencing issues. I suspect that a certain percentage of these "issues" (but by no means all) however are being created by unreasonably high expectations e.g. indoor GPS usage.

It is not unreasonable to have GPS in your car though.

 

[spiz]

Agreed, 100% with everything you have said. A rational and intelligent post. I believe that some, perhaps many, are experiencing issues. I suspect that a certain percentage of these "issues" (but by no means all) however are being created by unreasonably high expectations e.g. indoor GPS usage.

First off... forget that Gators joke. We all know they will be worthless again now that Tebow is gone.

Second, go Ducks!

No but really, this GPS problem is indeed a problem that is being experienced by many, many people. Outdoors. Mine was fine for a while, and then it started being dumb randomly. This is the case for a lot of people. I've never attempted to use the satellite indoors.

Like I said, this is the hottest thing going on for the Samsung/TMobile team right now and will be fixed soon.

 

[Mark27]

Just got my Vibrant today. Of course the GPS does not work. I got 2 in view and 0 in use. I talked to T-Mobile, he said it is definitely a software issue and that Samsung and T-Mobile are definitely going to give us a fix. I asked for a promise that my GPS would work and he kind of gave it to me and then said that they going to try their best to get this done soon, but no date. Basically the same stuff, but I wanted to call anyways to help support our cause.

I will call Samsung later, any advice, and what is the number?