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All things GPS

Is this a poll?

  • Yes, it looks like a poll.

    Votes: 42 26.3%

  • No, there is no way this is a poll.

    Votes: 31 19.4%

  • Why in the world is there a poll here?

    Votes: 87 54.4%
  • Total voters
    160
DynaBlue said:
Build number is listed on the label under the battery while build date is obtained by registering the phone on the Samsung Website. My build numbers were Unknown (didn't look), 1009, 1009 and 1012.
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Is there any downside to registering it on the Samsung site, thus allowing you to know the build date?
 
Alright, I've gotten to the point that i really do need my GPS and I'm not waiting for any new releases. I have to ask the people specifically who went and replaced their Captivate with another one, did it get better or was it only temporary? There were threads about people exchanging their Captivates, but it was also mixed in with some people who only had a temporary improvement before it went bad again. Simply, I want to know whether exchanging=success? (I'm not even sure I'm allowed to do that at this point, but if I am, some answers would be nice...)

OH, and the problem is with it not being able to maintain a GPS signal. Every now and then, it either loses the signal or puts me somewhere else on the map. When it does work, it works magically, but the other times, which is most of the time, you just see the cursor jump around within a 3 or 4 block radius putting me on random streets in random directions as though I'm stuck to a broken jetpack or something of the sort.
 
My experience with replacement Captivates wasn't encouraging until I got a brand new one (build 1012) slightly over two weeks ago and it has been very reliable. My observations are on about page 23 of the 'all things GPS' thread.
 
I just got my first Captivate today in the mail and set it up (LOVE THIS THING). I got a lock on the GPS in about 3 seconds and it tracks perfectly. I tried it out on google navigation on my drive home from work and it didn't skip a beat! 2.1 with JH7.
 
DynaBlue said:
My experience with replacement Captivates wasn't encouraging until I got a brand new one (build 1012) slightly over two weeks ago and it has been very reliable. My observations are on about page 23 of the 'all things GPS' thread.
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THIS is the All things GPS thread, and "page 23" is non-specific--totally depends on how many posts/page each person is set for in their options: 5,10,20,30,40.

If you click on the 'permalink' on the post, you can get a url to paste that references the exact post.
 
When I posted #1155 it was in a different thread but was merged shortly after, hence the confusing post. As to your point about the pages, okay, you're correct.
 
DynaBlue said:
Build number is listed on the label under the battery while build date is obtained by registering the phone on the Samsung Website. My build numbers were Unknown (didn't look), 1009, 1009 and 1012.
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Oh great. Mine seems to be 1006 !!! It is not labelled with the word "build" by the number, but none of the others are 4 digits.

I am so happy I got one of the earlier ones. NOT.

Wonder if these numbers are YYMM?
 
I've gotten mine to work well enough for google nav to be quite useable. All I did was get it a windshield mount so it can really see the sky. When sitting on the passenger seat or in the cupholder, it would lock when stationary, but would frequently lose it once the car started moving. But in the windshield mount, it works. I've seen the blue circle appear a couple times, but it's not too big, and it still had me in pretty much the right spot. And it's an infrequent occurence anyway. Even worked in the rain.

One other thing I've noticed-- even without the windshield mount, it would work, albeit fitfully, in my car (a Mazda 3 sedan with a sunroof), but it never really did in my wife's van (Mazda MPV). That van has so much metal around you and overhead that it's practically a Faraday cage. YMMV, but the car you're in could possibly be a factor. That's not to excuse the Captivate-- if it's signal sensitivity were better, the car probably wouldn't matter. But if the circumstances are such that the signal is maximized, the Captivate can work.

I suspect it's external factors like these that lead to the widely varying reports of works/doesn't work, rather than any differences in the phones themselves.
 
I mentioned a week or so ago that I replaced my Captivate with a new one. It's been about a week and a half since the return and I'm happy to say that my Captivate's GPS is still performing perfectly. So much so in fact that I decided to leave my Tomtom at home when I went on vacation last week. It performed beautifully - it gave turn-by-turn directions without falling behind or jumping all over the place once and it was used for that function every day. It also found us a few local restaurants that turned out to be awesome :).

To me it is obvious that they fixed a hardware issue with the new phones. I tweaked and tweaked (and tweaked!) my old phone and couldn't get it anywhere near as good as the GPS performance on my new phone. And I haven't had to tweak my new phone at all - it just works.
 
I think one of the main issues with the gps is the modem. I tried TLJL3 and JK4 and have almost perfect gps. Today Im gonna try JPP and see what happens. Unfortunately to run these modems, you need a i9000 rom.
 
Copronymous said:
I'm on my second Captivate. Neither had usable GPS.
I'm using a custom ROM now and it has worked very well since switching.
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My experience was very similar. With the stock firmware, my captivate would very slowly detect surrounding satellites and then it would take 1-2 minutes to get the first satellite lock. Locking the remaining satellites would take as much as another 5 minutes. Keep in mind this is a cold start situation where I hadn't locked these satellites in the past 4 hours.

After installed Cognition, I immediately detect all surrounding satellites and lock them all simultaneously in the next 5-10 seconds. Again this is with a completely cold start. In some situations, I hadn't used GPS in as much as a week. I never had to make any gps settings adjustments with the new ROM.
 
IMO, there are probably some hardware flaws (namely GPS) in the early US models of the Samsung Galaxy variant and these problems are probably fixed in the later releases such as the Canadian variants. That's why Samsung is so reluctant in releasing the new firmware for US because if people still report problems after 2.2 is released, Samsung would really have no excuse but to replace or recall the affected devices. We already saw an example with the Captivate's random shutdowns with the AT&T's internal report, which took them 6 months to begin acknowledging the problem.

Pure speculation here. I know some people strongly believe that the GPS is purely a software problem. But the fact that newer devices seem to have better GPS performances in general would suggest that it may be a mixed problem.
 
movrshakr said:
What are TLJL3, JK4, JPP, Cognition?

Some of us (maybe just me) do not understand this lingo.
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Cognition is a custom hacked ROM, based upon an early leaked unfinished "beta" internal build of Android 2.2 for the Captivate but then modified/improved somewhat. Those other things are "modems"... files in the phone's system software that handle the wireless connectivity. They are only of interest to people experimenting with hacked ROMs, as different files give different results/issues for different people.

Advanced topics, and unless you're going down the risky road of hacking your phone, they needn't concern you. :)
 
There are threads on XDA where they say the culprit is the connector between the GPS antenna and the phone motherboard. Well, that and crappy firmware.
 
I laid down in bed last night and brought up the GPS and my Ulysses program. It picked up 7 satellites and locked on 3 of them. From inside my house and taking a minute or so I'm not going to complain about it. I was surprised.
 
my canadian phone thru rogers is captivate and the 2.2 update done on wknd is not good so far. like some features but battery life was good before and now i am getting about a half days use.
my scrolling and use of features is laggy and jerky and nonresponsive.

but the gps? something i need in a totally unknown new city i moved to? it is great since the update. fantastic and fast and not quite up to iphone but very close and re gps alone...this is great.
 
The only difficulty I have had with the GPS getting a lock-on is when I'm moving quickly in a car. Oh, the the first time I used it for some reason.


After that, it's been under 10 seconds each time.


This is on the Canadian Rogers Captivate.
 
So how do you explain the Epic and Fascinate? They came out pretty late and also no froyo?

Phandroid is reporting that rumors of froyo delay on TMO vibrant is because a new 4G vibrant is coming out soon and Samsung wants froyo on new vibrant version as a selling point.
 
I wouldn't doubt it. You know how companies are. They may make a breakthrough to something way more advanced that would be more efficient in every way BUT they will only add one good thing at a time to get your money. I don't blame them. Why sell you a phone with 10 new features when I can sell you 10 phones with one new feature on each? Thats business lol
 
So how do you explain the Epic and Fascinate? They came out pretty late and also no froyo?
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You need to be more specific when you say "pretty late". Pretty late is not late enough. If you had followed the random shutdown threads, you would know that late means the device had a manufacture date after October.
 
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