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NS GPS vs Xperia X8

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eugene654

Newbie
I Know this is an odd comparison, the X8 being a much cheaper phone.

I just bought an NS last week, and decided at the same time to get a new phone for my wife, the Xperia X8 as they had a good deal for a 2nd phone.

Anyway in most ways obviously the Nexus is a vastly superior phone, as would be expected. However this is not the case with the GPS. The GPS on the Nexus is very poor to say the least.

Frequently it fails to get a lock, and when it does it tends to be hopelessly inaccurate. Sometimes even more concerningly it thinks it has an accurate lock, but is actually out by hundreds of meters.

When I check it against the X8, in all situations the X8 GPS performs much better. It gets a lock much quicker (even when the Nexus can't get a lock at all), and it is much more accurate.

I know there are quite a few posts about the Nexus GPS performance. However I still haven't been able to figure out if this is considered a hardware or software fault. If it's software I can probably put up with it until the next update. If it's hardware then I suppose I'll have to try returning the phone and get something else.

In most ways I love the phone, however I was counting on having a usable GPS, and at the moment my Nexus really doesn't fit the bill.

Is there any point getting a replacement NS, just in case I have a faulty unit? In other posts I've read that people have replaced them multiple times, and had no luck getting a decent GPS.
 
It sounds like you may have a defective unit. Mine locks on really quickly and is always very accurate. But I have heard a small amount of people having problems with the gps.
 
B2L said:
It sounds like you may have a defective unit. Mine locks on really quickly and is always very accurate. But I have heard a small amount of people having problems with the gps.
Click to expand...

Also it tends to jump around a bit. For example when I'm using GPS Test, with the phone perfectly still, it will often indicate that the phone is moving.

I called Samsung support, and it does sound like my phone is faulty. Under ideal conditions, away from buildings and trees, and with a clear sky, the location is usually only accurate to 32.8 feet (sometimes down to 16.4), when it should apparently be accurate to within 3 feet.

Can anyone else confirm that their Nexus S is consistently getting better than 32 feet accuracy?
 
eugene654 said:
Also it tends to jump around a bit. For example when I'm using GPS Test, with the phone perfectly still, it will often indicate that the phone is moving.

I called Samsung support, and it does sound like my phone is faulty. Under ideal conditions, away from buildings and trees, and with a clear sky, the location is usually only accurate to 32.8 feet (sometimes down to 16.4), when it should apparently be accurate to within 3 feet.

Can anyone else confirm that their Nexus S is consistently getting better than 32 feet accuracy?
Click to expand...

it does seem as the problem is your unit I and many others have a great GPS, hopefully you have some recourse
 
The NS GPS is terrible. I made a thread some time ago stating that sitting the NS in a cradle hampered the lock. I'd be surprised if you returned it and received a better one.
 
MartinS said:
The NS GPS is terrible. I made a thread some time ago stating that sitting the NS in a cradle hampered the lock. I'd be surprised if you returned it and received a better one.
Click to expand...

The Gps on my Nexus S functions just fine. It also works quite well mounted in the air vent cell phone car holder in my car.


Have no idea what kind of cradle you sit your Nexus S in, but it could be that this particular cradle covers the GPS antenna, or it just could be you have a faulty phone. But if it is that the antenna is being covered, then it is unfair to bad mouth this phone because the GPS doesn't work in a particular "cradle".
 
eugene654 said:
Can anyone else confirm that their Nexus S is consistently getting better than 32 feet accuracy?
Click to expand...
I can confirm that mine is accurate to 10m inside my house sitting at the computer using C:GEO to check lat/lon and accuracy. Outdoors in the yard with some trees overhead it's accurate to 5m...I haven't tested yet out in the open, but it should get down to 1-3m.
 
MartinS said:
The NS GPS is terrible. I made a thread some time ago stating that sitting the NS in a cradle hampered the lock. I'd be surprised if you returned it and received a better one.
Click to expand...
Either you have a bad unit, or the cradle somehow interferes with reception. I have no issues using Navigation in the car with the phone sitting on the center console away from the windshield.
 
MartinS said:
The NS GPS is terrible. I made a thread some time ago stating that sitting the NS in a cradle hampered the lock. I'd be surprised if you returned it and received a better one.
Click to expand...


Yea man my GPS is good also. Don't make blanket statements like that because your having issues it will lead people to believe erroneously
 
B2L said:
It sounds like you may have a defective unit. Mine locks on really quickly and is always very accurate. But I have heard a small amount of people having problems with the gps.
Click to expand...

My experience mirrors yours, it's simply excellent.
 
bfksc said:
I can confirm that mine is accurate to 10m inside my house sitting at the computer using C:GEO to check lat/lon and accuracy. Outdoors in the yard with some trees overhead it's accurate to 5m...I haven't tested yet out in the open, but it should get down to 1-3m.
Click to expand...
I just did some more testing outside, and after a while it did start to get down to 5m. However my wife's phone in the same position was consistently accurate to 2m, even near trees.
I can't get a fix at all indoors. GPS Test shows that it can see satelites, but they're all greyed out, which I'm assuming means the signals aren't strong enough.
I haven't tried it in a cradle yet. I've only used it sitting in the center console of the car, and hand holding it outside.
I should mention that I have used it reasonably successfully with Google Navigation in the car, but initially it takes a long time to get a fix, and there is also a noticeable lag between turning a corner and the map updating.
Anyway I'll try going back to the store and see what they say. It's fairly easy to demonstrate the issue. The Samsung tech support person didn't think there would be any problem with me getting a replacement.
 
I should add that in hand or sitting in the centre console of the car, it works fine. It's just this cradle business... The Nexus One wasn't affected like this.

And I know, I may have a faulty unit, but I just don't see how as it works correctly under most conditions.
 
eugene654 said:
I just did some more testing outside, and after a while it did start to get down to 5m.
Click to expand...
How long is a while? I get a lock in 5 seconds or less outdoors - it's about as fast as the Desire I used previously. In the car or house it may take 5-10 seconds depending on satellite locations. But once I have a lock, it's pretty solid.

I tend to think it's defective. Before you exchange it, have you tried doing a USB Memory erase followed by a Factory reset to wipe the phone clean?
 
MartinS said:
I should add that in hand or sitting in the centre console of the car, it works fine. It's just this cradle business... The Nexus One wasn't affected like this.

And I know, I may have a faulty unit, but I just don't see how as it works correctly under most conditions.
Click to expand...

If the gps reception works well everywhere else but in the cradle in your car then I think it is logical to suppose that your Nexus S is not defective at all.


Do you have GPS reception inside of your car when your Nexus S is not in the cradle?

If you don't have good GPS reception inside your car even if your Nexus S is not in the cradle then it could be that you have a windshield with metallic coating - or there is something else preventing GPS reception inside your vehicle.

Otherwise try a different cradle.
 
It works well in most cases except for in the cradle.

However, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the GPS to work when the phone is sat in a few mm of plastic. As I said before, the Nexus One performed brilliantly in a similar cradle from the same manufacturer.
 
MartinS said:
It works well in most cases except for in the cradle.

However, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the GPS to work when the phone is sat in a few mm of plastic. As I said before, the Nexus One performed brilliantly in a similar cradle from the same manufacturer.
Click to expand...

The gps antenna is probably not located in the same place in both these phones.

Do you get good gps reception inside your car without the cradle?
 
MartinS said:
It works well in most cases except for in the cradle.

However, I don't think it is unreasonable to expect the GPS to work when the phone is sat in a few mm of plastic. As I said before, the Nexus One performed brilliantly in a similar cradle from the same manufacturer.
Click to expand...

Maybe the cradle has a bolt or screw that rests right above the GPS antenna. Or perhaps it's because of the location it's mounted, getting interference from your radio or wiring. Have you tried it in the cradle outside of the car or in different orientations?
 
I can confirm that the nexus s has a bad gps hardware because since december 16th , I had 6 different Nexus s and all of them had a bad gps lock... I was navigate in the city full strenght signal and all time it takes over 2 mins to lock with a lil 5-10 m accurate... compared to the 8 nexus one I had the gps on the S is really poor... maybe I had 6 unit defect... but we should not exaggerate either!
 
frankkduf said:
I can confirm that the nexus s has a bad gps hardware because since december 16th , I had 6 different Nexus s and all of them had a bad gps lock... I was navigate in the city full strenght signal and all time it takes over 2 mins to lock with a lil 5-10 m accurate... compared to the 8 nexus one I had the gps on the S is really poor... maybe I had 6 unit defect... but we should not exaggerate either!
Click to expand...


Wow that's a whole lot of suck. I'm glad mine works
 
Just out of curiosity, has anyone been able to get a fix with the nexus S to better than 5m accuracy?
One odd thing I've noticed with the my Nexus as compared to the Xperia, is that the Nexus always shows accuracies in 5m increments. 5m, 10m, 15m ... 25m etc... I have never seen it show accuracy that is not a multiple of 5m. However the Xperia appears to be able to show accuracy in 1m increments, 2m, 3m, ... 7m ... 12m etc.
Can anyone else confirm this?
Has anyone actually had their Nexus show an accuracy that is not a multiple of 5m?
 
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