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Nexus S and Satellite Navigation / Google Navigation

M

MartinS

Android Expert
I'm interested to know everyone's experiences of navigation on the Nexus S.

My experiences are that Google Navigation on the Nexus ONE was faultless. On the Nexus S though I have the following issues:

Weak GPS lock. Either loses satellites completely or not accurate enough at busy junctions where the device may put me on the wrong road, exit etc.

Secondly, the Navigation app freezes completely regularly enough to be a pain.

Third, the GPS fix seems to be impaired when the phone is in a cradle (powered).

This is a real deal breaker for me as I do travel for work and don't want to revert to Tomtom.

So, is this the general experience? Or is my device faulty?

Thanks in advance.
 
MartinS said:
I'm interested to know everyone's experiences of navigation on the Nexus S.

My experiences are that Google Navigation on the Nexus ONE was faultless. On the Nexus S though I have the following issues:

Weak GPS lock. Either loses satellites completely or not accurate enough at busy junctions where the device may put me on the wrong road, exit etc.

Secondly, the Navigation app freezes completely regularly enough to be a pain.

Third, the GPS fix seems to be impaired when the phone is in a cradle (powered).

This is a real deal breaker for me as I do travel for work and don't want to revert to Tomtom.

So, is this the general experience? Or is my device faulty?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Haven't had problems with mine, but I don't use it enough to notice all the faults you have listed.
 
Ya, i've had some of the same problems with my Nexus S. Sometimes it takes forever for it to start navigating. Other times it will completely loose the GPS signal while navigating. This is my second Nexus S and i have noticed the same problem with both devices. I never had a problem with my Nexus one. Definitely a downgrade in the GPS Quality in my opinion.
 
I use it quite a bit and haven't had any issues; however, it does seem to take longer than the Nexus One to lock on the current location, usually 20-30 seconds as compared to 10-20 seconds. Not a big deal as far as I'm concerned.
 
Thanks for your answers. I had a terrible day with the Nexus S today. It barely got a lock all the way from Newcastle to Banbury in Oxfordshire (200 miles).

I'm going to manually update to 2.3.3 and see if there is a difference, then I may have to send the phone off for repair through CPW. If no resolve then it's definitely eBay time. This is such an important feature for me as I visit customers all over the UK 3-4 days per week. I will have also wasted
 
I figure this out the other day. The problem is actually a weak GPS signal (caused by inferior GPS chip?).

Discovered it by chance as it always works well in my car and does not have any of the problems you've described. But the other day I was in my dad's car (Honda CRV) and it did not get a lock at all. Understanding this, we stopped the car and stepped out and within 4 seconds, I was able to get a lock.

I am not sure what this means, maybe some google engineer can figure it out
 
Hi,
is it for 2.3.3, and if so where did you get it and how did you install it? does it require you to be root?

Thanks
Ebbe
 
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