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

Help GPS in Nexus 7?

martingroso

martingroso

Member
Hey guys,

I'm not sure if to buy the Nexus 7 yet (it looks amazing, JB looks awesome and the price is great), but before going for it, I have heard that some Android devices have really crappy built in GPS (like the transformer prime, which if I'm not wrong, is an Asus as well).

So what I would like to know is. Is the GPS in Nexus 7 good?
 
martingroso said:
Hey guys,

I'm not sure if to buy the Nexus 7 yet (it looks amazing, JB looks awesome and the price is great), but before going for it, I have heard that some Android devices have really crappy built in GPS (like the transformer prime, which if I'm not wrong, is an Asus as well).

So what I would like to know is. Is the GPS in Nexus 7 good?
Click to expand...

I do not have my Nexus 7 yet (being delivered tomorrow), but i may be able to answer at least part of this.

coming from The Transformer Prime, GPS, bluetooth and WiFi radios both suffered it seamed, because of the thought to make the entire tablet out of aluminum. This may have have caused a frequency reflection problem and hurt their full potential. on the other hand, the N7 is all plastic, again with GPS, bluetooth, WiFi, and now NFC radios so this device shouldn't suffer the same fate.

when i get mine out of the box (lol, unboxing videos) i plan to attempt to install Navigon and a gps testing app with WiFi off to get a better idea of signal strength and time to lock, since it doesn't seam to have been investigated yet. I will update when i find out unless someone gets to it first. And to answer any other questions or thoughts, yes I do plan on using this as a backup GPS unit if it will let me.
 
So far, it seems fairly accurate. It was also accurate on my Asus Transformer. So I don't think one can write off Asus and GPS. Now I'm researching offline navigation apps to use with this.
 
William T Riker said:
GPS works flawless on my N7, locks nearly instantly. On my Prime it never worked straight out of the box.
Click to expand...

Indeed the gps works great on wifi BUT I am a bit confused as to how to use it with no wifi and to get performance equal or better than a new garmin or tomtom. I know its cpu is far better than a g or tt, I just do not understand how they work without a data connection.
 
4ubest said:
Indeed the gps works great on wifi BUT I am a bit confused as to how to use it with no wifi and to get performance equal or better than a new garmin or tomtom. I know its cpu is far better than a g or tt, I just do not understand how they work without a data connection.
Click to expand...
All the maps are stored on the device itself. With Google maps, all the content is downloaded, with a TT (or an offline navigation app for the N7) all the content is stored on the device.
 
Markg said:
All the maps are stored on the device itself. With Google maps, all the content is downloaded, with a TT (or an offline navigation app for the N7) all the content is stored on the device.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind you can also cache a significant amount of maps for use offline.
 
Omar Days said:
You can get navfree from the market, and you download maps onto your device. UK map was somewhere between 300mb and 500mb, so not taking up too much space. It's all free too. Works well on my galaxy note.
Click to expand...

Cool! Downloading that now, thanks.
 
I'm a little confused with how offline GPS works too. I downloaded a map area. It seemed to be limited to about 35mb, but covered a fairly large area, maybe 50 x 50 miles. Additional map areas can be downloaded and each area can named. I had somewhere to go so I tried out the GPS. I used the included Navigation app to get directions and off I went.

I used the 'Follow the Route' option. I wanted an alternative route but couldn't figure out how to do it. No problem, this would be an opportunity to see the GPS do re-routing on the fly. GPS followed my driving, but at about 15 miles out, I deviated from the GPS route. I expected it to re-route, but it didn't and soon the map displayed progressively became obscured and I got some message about 'data connection' not being available. When I got to my destination I opened Google maps and it found my location, but when I tried to get directions for home, it said it required a data connection. I left Google maps on and as I drove home, it followed my location flawlessly.

So is a data connection required to get actual directions and/or to make course corrections, even though an offline map is being used?
 
martingroso said:
Hey guys,

I'm not sure if to buy the Nexus 7 yet (it looks amazing, JB looks awesome and the price is great), but before going for it, I have heard that some Android devices have really crappy built in GPS (like the transformer prime, which if I'm not wrong, is an Asus as well).

So what I would like to know is. Is the GPS in Nexus 7 good?
Click to expand...

The GPS works great! Even within my house. The apps for offline use still need some work. The Google Now turn-by-turn directions, for instance, works fabulous (i.e., intuitive, responsive, and informative) except that it seems to only save part of the selected route-map locally. Thus, once you get past the area that it saved (i.e. by some unknown default), the GPS still shows where you are relative to the path that you selected, but it will stop showing you the other roads, waterbodies, etc along the way (until you re-connect the wifi). Thus, you'd have to switch back to your offline Google Map to see your local detail, which is fairly easy to do but then you loose the ETA clock and the live upcoming-turn-suggestions.

The free Co-Pilot GPS app overcomes this limitation except that I couldn't figure out how to make it automatically stay centered on my current location. Plus the app is not nearly as responsive as my other apps -- most notably the Google alternative. It's not very intuitive either. Perhaps the paid version does more -- though the quirky behavior gives me pause to even try it. And perhaps others can comment on how other apps work.

Long-story short, there's not reason to believe that Google and other apps will soon overcome these current shortcomings. I fully expect the Google directions to get even smarter, and soon.
 
Tried mine yesterday inside a train - metal box with metallic ant-glare windows and it worked perfectly. I certainly couldn't do that with TF201!
 
I tried out the N7 on a one hour journey at the weekend using Co-pilot GPS (free in the app store, although I have the almost essential
 
I've just driven all over Northern Italy with CoPilot Live on my Galaxy Note and it was great ( especially the tunnel simulations) . I'm guessing it will work well with the Nexus 7 as well
 
Grok451 said:
So is a data connection required to get actual directions and/or to make course corrections, even though an offline map is being used?
Click to expand...

As far as I can tell, yes, that's the case for Google Maps.

You can cache map data, but it only caches the actual map itself. It doesn't seem to be able to do directions if it's not connected to the internet.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom