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http://free-pc-guides.com/news/first-att-samsung-captivate-owners-report-problems-with-gps-02887
This is such a sensationalist article. There aren't any problems with the GPS. You're supposed to use a GPS outside, and even inside, mine got a signal fine.
This article also says that T-mobile is expected to get the Captivate, which is false. It already has the Vibrant.
What GPS Problem??
No problems for me, thus far...
Mine has locked once. After that it refuses and just triangulates using cell towers and accurate within 2600 meters.
I'm not sure I would call it a "problem", but the GPS chip in these things is definitely not as good as the GPS chips in most other newly released phones. It could be a software issue, but I doubt it. The Aria would consistently lock onto twice as many satellites as this thing. When driving near large buildings and under bridges I sometimes lose a lock and Google Nav jumps around, which never happens in those same places with the Aria.
It seems to be working fine for me, but then I saw that someone had posted a fix for it when you dialed into the GPS settings, so I did that, and now.... it's still working fine!
gtg465x said:
I'm not sure I would call it a "problem", but the GPS chip in these things is definitely not as good as the GPS chips in most other newly released phones. It could be a software issue, but I doubt it. The Aria would consistently lock onto twice as many satellites as this thing. When driving near large buildings and under bridges I sometimes lose a lock and Google Nav jumps around, which never happens in those same places with the Aria.
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I've recently used both an Evo and an ATT-band Nexus One. I do have to say that the GPS on both of those seemed to acquire signals from satellites much faster than the Captivate, and give a more accurate location. Even standing outside, in the open, this one never appears to lock in on my precise location as well. I realize that's only anecdotal, but I no longer have access to either of the other devices.
Maybe its just mine, but I traveled over 300 miles today using Google Navigation, the phone up in the dash, with a clear view of the sky keep on having issue finding me.
I have an N1 and Aria, neither of these have these issues.
Do the specs indicate which GPS chip is being used? Some are better than others. Is it SirFStar III, IV, or MTK or what? This can certainly make a difference but costs about the same, so why get a cheapo chip? Hope Samsung did not do that.
GPS is definitely poor. From watching GPS Test I'd wager it's a firmware issue. No reason to have satellites popping in and out of view in the middle of a field on a clear day...
I've had many GPS units (>10) and the GPS in the phone is the second worst I've ever had. Very flaky. It looks like they also tried to mask the problem by averaging a bunch of the last fixes. I say this because the speed indication trails reality by quite a bit!
And I did try the proposed settings elsewhere but it didn't seem to improve much.
Hopefully they'll get this fixed. It's not the way GPS should be working on a top tier phone.
AJerman said:
It seems to be working fine for me, but then I saw that someone had posted a fix for it when you dialed into the GPS settings, so I did that, and now.... it's still working fine!
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Okay, so to change my stance a little, the GPS has been a little off tonight. Locking has been slower than I like, but it has been locking, and I saw it lock to at least 7 satellites earlier so I know it has no issue with handling that many at once.
The bigger annoyance that I'm having now is that my AGPS is off by quite a bit, telling me I'm in the next town over until it gets a full GPS signal. Not only is this annoying, but it also throws off every app that uses the cell data for coarse location, and I wouldn't be surprised if it has an effect on how fast it locks to the actual GPS satellites since it has the wrong location info to start which is the whole point of AGPS.
I actually did the GPS tweaks found in another thread, and I was navigating around my city. Maps was spot on for 98% of the time. Once or twice it put me about 30 meters away, but that was when i was surrounded by trees or concrete. Overall, I was very VERY impressed with the voice navigation, and the re-routing it did when i drove past a turn!
hmose said:
Do the specs indicate which GPS chip is being used? Some are better than others. Is it SirFStar III, IV, or MTK or what? This can certainly make a difference but costs about the same, so why get a cheapo chip? Hope Samsung did not do that.
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I'm starting to think that the processor and screen on this phone cost so much that Samsung had to cut corners in other areas to keep prices competitive. So far we've seen widespread evidence of crappy chargers (take forever to charge), GPS chips (slow and not very accurate), compasses (all over the place), internal memory (slow memory is causing the stalling issue / lag), and lack of camera flash. Hopefully not all of those are hardware issues and some can be fixed with software, but I'm just saying, they might have cut some corners to keep this thing reasonably priced. Personally, I would have rather paid $100 more to have the best phone ever made hands down. Oh Samsung.
I got it to lock like one time outside. Then I found this http://androidforums.com/samsung-captivate/128026-everyone-who-having-gps-problems.html and now it locks on inside my house. And this is actually GPS I'm talking about not wifi/cell tower triangulation. Hope it helps some of you.
I picked mine up the 19th in the burbs of Chicago. Drove up to Milwaukee with it the same day and did a side by side comparison with my Garmin GPS after my friend sent me the article.
Besides 2 minor hiccups, they worked very similar.
*the first hiccup shouldn't even be credited as a hiccup because it was an alternate route, I knew from experience it was slower but my Garmin and my Magellan of past never recognized it as the faster route.
*the second hiccup was when I was driving down 294 to merge into 94. Both had about the same instruction but out of nowhere my captivate's nav system said to take a left into a random road. It "recalculated" after a quick flicker and went back on course with my Garmin.
Recently I noticed there was an update for the Maps application which gave me "Navigation" and after installing it, I prefer my phone to my Garmin because:
1. It now gives you a picture of the destination in "street view" which you can touch and scroll around when you've arrived or pretty much arrived.
2. It shows traffic (green is good, red is bad)
3. I'm not sure if this was before the update but you can scroll through the map using the touch screen rather than just zooming in and out.
I'll do a few more runs driving between Milwaukee and the Chicago burbs before I completely set aside one or the other, but my experience has definitely met my expectations of a GPS
Why not download GPS NMEA MONITOR App and watch the data sentences. If they keep coming then it is a software problem, not the GPS Chipset. If those data sentences are stopped, then you got a hardware chipset reception problem. Try getting a clear view of the sky.
Zero GPS issues here, faster then backflip, tilt, & tilt2 for me. Grabs and maintains connection just fine.
I bought my first Captivate at the very beginning of August. I wanted the GPS to work, so I could use it instead of a separate GPS unit sometimes. After about 5 days the GPS was really struggling to lock. I put it outside under the open sky for 5 minutes with GPS Test, and it saw lots of satellites but used zero. I reset the phone and poof, it worked properly again. That seemed like a strange bug to me. I heard an update was coming by the end of September, but that was going to be outside my 30 days, so I returned my Captivate to Best Buy and got my $230 back, no problems.
Sept 7, I bought a new Captivate, now only $150 at Best Buy. This one worked fine and the GPS never completely failed like the first one did. But I didn't test much as I waited for the update. September 22 I forced the update on my normal unrooted captivate, and it went fine. I did some testing and the GPS seemed to track OK and lock in a reasonable time. Now its a week later and it still seems good.
Here are a couple comments.
First a note on my GPS experience. I own 3 GPS units besides the Captivate, and older MIO C230, a Garmin eTrex Centure HC, and SPOT 2 GPS Messenger. I also have extensive experience with a Garmin Nuvi 1390T. I ride a dirt bike in the desert and have used tracks to navigate extensively.
- Time to get satellite lock. The Captivate does often take a while to lock on the satellites. But so do all my other GPS devices. Sometimes they lock quickly, but often they can take a minute or more. This is related to whether they have stored data on where they are, and thus know where to look for the satellites. At any rate I don't always get a quick lock on the Captivate, but it has never failed to get a lock under a clear sky if I give it up a minute or two. 10m resolution is typical once locked under a unobstructed sky. For those having trouble with this: Are you giving the Captivate a clear view of the sky and a couple minutes? Yes, sometimes GPS's lock indoors and really quickly. But in my experience this isn't always true. What I'm saying is the Captivate works similarly to the other GPS's I use. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. But it is always locking under a clear unobstructed sky within a couple minutes.
- Google maps. After it locks, the captivate shows my location on the map well. As I said above, sometimes lock takes a minute or more. And it requires a clear view of the sky most of the time.
- Track quality. I tested with "My Tracks". I run around town on a scooter every day, so its easy to turn on the tracker and and see what happens. I put the Captivate in my pocket on my thigh, back side facing the sky. The only thing obscuring its view is my body. Basically, it seems to work fine. It certainly works as well as my Garmin eTrex. The eTex tracks are always a bit rough too. Yes, the Captivate track does sometimes cut the corner or the curve and is off the street that I actually rode on. But it basically follows my route well. It has always followed me when I loop around a block, or drive down a short dead end and come back. I can definitely tell where I went and what roads I took when I look at the track. I'm not bothered if it shows me 20-40 feet off the road on occasion (as I have noted, so does my Garmin eTrex). I expect this with a 10m resolution.
- Navigation. I've been using the google Navigation app on drives in the car. I mount the Captivate in a mount on the dash, so it has a clear view of the sky through the glass. It's not on the seat, or in the ashtray or in a cup holder. It's mounted to the windshield close to the front, so it has a good view of a broad expanse of sky. This is exactly how I mount the Mio GPS or Garmin etrex or Garmin Nuvi when I use those in the car. Used like this, my Captivate navigation has been excellent. Frankly, its far better app than the Mio or Garmin Nuvi 1390T that I have used. The searches are quick and I like the presentation. Obviously, in Navigation the app knows to lock you on the street. And when I drive past an indicated turn it always notices immediately.
Summary: So I don't know what has changed since my first Captivate, but this one seems fine to me. I don't know if it's the hardware, or the SW update. But so far mine works as well as the other GPS devices I have used. If it keeps working like this for another week, I'm definitely keeping it. I'm sure some have trouble, as I did with my first Captivate. And I do think some others expect too much: I don't expect the Captivate to be "THE BEST GPS" I have ever seen. I expect it to lock within 2 minutes, work for navigation in my car, to find me on a google map and to record a track of where I went. This all seems to be working for me. (And usually it locks in well under a minute for me). I think I'll keep it... if this performance keeps up.
IMO, YMMV
Carl
vintagephone/Carl. Yours is a very useful write up. I use a Garmin GPS for Geocaching, some street navigation and bicycle riding in the country. What you wrote should be very helpful to someone not so familiar with GPS devices in general. Thanks.
= Ron
I completely agree. People looking at 'my tracks' and showing that there are some slight variations - we don't even know if the google maps is 100% accurate, as I know there are certain places where it doesn't match up directly with the road. I think as long as no errors are being presented during navigation (mine is doing fine in navigation mode) there is not really any complaining that can be done. Even my built in car GPS makes a mistakes once in a blue moon.
I'm not sure what Garmin Nuvi you're using, but I have a 2 yr old 250W and it smokes this phone. The phone has me driving through people's yards and buildings. It has gotten better since the JH7 update, its almost what I would call usable now. Try doing a Mytracks track on it, its a joke how far off it is. Its certainly unusable for that.
derek4484 said:
I'm not sure what Garmin Nuvi you're using, but I have a 2 yr old 250W and it smokes this phone. .
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I'm very familiar with the Garmin I used, a Nuvi 1390T. Negatives for the Garmin included horrible traffic reports, and searches for my destination took forever. Basic Navigation was OK, if you knew the address of where you were going. And if you were going someplace more than 30 miles away (a common undertaking in the LA basin), you just couldn't get there. Searches on the Nuvi only include locations within 30 miles. Frankly, the search was much worse than on my old Mio. I had the Nuvi 1390 for a couple weeks and returned i just as I got my second Captivate. For basic GPS navigation, the Nuvi was OK, but I saw no advantage over the Captivate. Are you mounting your Captivate in the same way and place you are mounting your Nuvi? I actually use a modified Nuvi windshield mount with my Captivate, so my mounting is literally identical.
Now, you Captivate my not work as well as mine. My original Captivate was worse than this one. As I said, YMMV (your mileage may vary).
I use a Garmin V GPS receiver for Geocaching and some other activities which demands a very high degree of accuracy. This receiver will use as many birds as it can find (seldom less than five) to determine its location but a cell phone GPS receiver may limit the number of satellites it tracks to conserve battery power.
Using four satellites, the accuracy of the Garmin V typically comes down to a target area that is two to twenty feet in diameter. This unit is fast; I can watch the current location triangle move past streets just as I am able to make out the street signs.
The Captivate I ordered will not be here until later today so I can't report anything about my experience with that device. I have been using an HTC device (AT&T "Tilt") and Google Maps for several years now and can report it has very good GPS accuracy and speed when compared to the Garmin unit. I would be pleased indeed if the Captivate even comes close to the performance of the Tilt.
As with any GPS device, it has to have line of sight visibility with at least three satellites to report its position with any reliability. Clouds (with heavy moisture), trees and tall buildings can reduce GPS accuracy substantially. Bicycling through heavily forested areas reduces the accuracy of my Garmin V from a few feet to hundreds of feet. As it takes a few minutes for the receiver to "lock on" and recalculate its position, after pedaling through a forested area I can be a mile up the road before the display catches up. Even at bicycle speeds (15MPH) I have missed turns simply because of trees!
With the Tilt, moving on foot around tall buildings, Google Maps sometimes can't figure out where I am. In the car, I usually pull the sunroof shade back so the Tilt gets a clear shot at the sky.
One final point: If I have the Garmin running at home, shut it off, then restart it again when I am fifty miles from home, it takes maybe five minutes to find three in-view birds. There is a feature in the Gamin that allows me to move its cursor to about where I think I am and it, then it uses this information to find new birds. I use this feature frequently and it usually saves two or three minutes locking on to a new set of birds. That feature is not available with the Tilt and it can take a full five minutes for it to find three birds when I change location with the GPS receiver turned off.
I hope these comments are useful. A cell phone with GPS capabilities is understandably no match for a single-purpose GPS receiver and particularly so when the two devices sell for about the same price.
I doubt that it is Maps or myTracks that is off (although I had wondered about this as well) because when you run the Captivate side-by-side with an N1, the N1's lock and track are very fast (almost instantaneous) and flawless. Of course we all know the Captivate's lock and track issues. The N1's track would not be so perfect if it were an issue with the base map accuracy, when the app on both phones is the same and accesses the same data.
The issue can also be seen running GPS Status or GPS Test together too, the N1's lock is always better, although I see no appreciable difference in SNR values for each satellite. It is just like the Captivate simply will not lock, even when it sees the same satellites. That is why I am sure it is the driver issue and therefore fixable.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA App
Is the GPS working now that Froyo is on your Captivate? I have a brand new one on the way to me via FedEx right now so I can't flash it till I get it and wonder if anyone can tell me if GPS is fixed since Froyo is now available to the phone.
It's a lot better. But its not perfect. I'm still in the 3 day "GPS is guaranteed to work better" window so time will tell
Mine doesn't work at all. With all kinds of combinations of GPS setting tweaks.
Thanks. I hope it works better. The phone is still nice so I guess I'll be happy with it even if it's not perfect.
I hope Samsung has another fix for it since it's not working for everybody
I'm doing better but it still sucks.
GPS, using GPS Satellites only with default GPS settings will not lock onto ANYTHING AT ALL for me.
With cell towers, it's 1400m accurate.
Not sure what changed between 2.2 and 2.1 but with 2.1 GPS worked great for me.
Very strange that GPS functionality is different from phone to phone, software to software.....
I do hope they release an actual total GPS fix someday.
Edit: I still like the Galaxy S phones. I know Samsung is still very high tech. It may take them awhile to catch up with what people really want with an Android phone but other than that they have have put together some very nice phones with the Galaxy S line.
mine will pull me down to 10-20 meters. and according to lbstest, it shows it as 15m accurate, full stand alone, lock in between 15s-90s.
Driving around, it was the worst it has ever been. I then used GPS Status and left it up on my dash. I generally could see 2 or 3 satellites. Once, it got up to 4. This is during a sunny day with full view of the sky.
People still seem to think they have something great if it locks in their house, but the real test is driving around and seeing if you can KEEP that lock.
I noticed using ANY of the "GPS fixes" destroyed my GPS performance. I need it set to Standalone, Cold Start, AUTO SUPL config (no supl.google.com) and none of the Jupiter XML "fixes". Stock froyo GPS seems to work OK for me -- I get locks in a reasonable amount of time, although accuracy still isn't great. I still have yet to test Google Navigation / My Tracks, however.
A lot better for me......Many sats in view. Quick locks. Google maps tracked my car pretty quickly on 2.1. I would say this is as good as can be expected from a cell phone GPS device. I have Gamins for the cars so I really won't use this as such. but on my motorcycle it works very well.
It will not be perfect and I accept that. It is A lot better though than 2.1 IMO.
It is marginally better than JH7. Still broken for sure.
Stationary it's fine and gets a pretty fast lock.
Car navigation is poor. I was getting better results in Cognition 2.1.5. Positioning is jumping around, putting me a block away about 25% of the time, getting various sizes of the blue "circle of trust" about 50% of the time. It freezes occaisonally but maybe less than in some of my previously used ROMs. I've tried all the usual setting adjustments and they haven't helped.
The GPS nav capability on the Captivate in prior ROMs has been good enough for me to declare it satisfactory. I'd say this version isn't- yet. I'm confident we'll get it back to at least what it was, but it will take some more tweaking.
Just wondering if anyone is able to get reliable GPS locks in airplane mode. I am beginning to question whether I should switch to Xperia X10. I use GPS quite a bit and don't see why I need to get another GPS when the Cappy should have a working one.
I do love everything else about the Cappy. Hate to go to an outdated system but having everything working as described is kind of nice.
In my testing and experience it is much better, but still not as it ideally should be. I get nice, fast locks in Maps, but GPS test apps are still confused. Perhaps the whole benchmark vs practice concept, but this case seems to a little outside of that realm.
I was able to get GPS lock to around 10 sats only after deactivating the "Use wireless network" option.
However, I had no nav app so i cant say how it tracks.. I am back to 2.1 now, waiting until 2.2 wont be so laggy
gordec said:
Just wondering if anyone is able to get reliable GPS locks in airplane mode. I am beginning to question whether I should switch to Xperia X10. I use GPS quite a bit and don't see why I need to get another GPS when the Cappy should have a working one.
I do love everything else about the Cappy. Hate to go to an outdated system but having everything working as described is kind of nice.
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This is interesting, as I keep thinking of switching to a Galaxy S because SE's so slow about updating to 2.1 (Maybe November?) and 2.2 which is a requirement for the latest Gmail and GDocs may not come until Spring 2011 if ever.
However, GPS is extraordinary on the X10. I live on the side of a hill and I can get a lock in 3 seconds,starting with 7/7 and then 8/8 sats by 30 seconds (every option turned on). Lattitude, Navigation, Maps, etc all work wonderfully.
WiFi and GPS are the two most 'additional' features for me on a phone. I have a bit of an issue with SE's Wifi as it's only working when the phone's awake and if the screen blanks, it switches to 3G. Leaves you tethered to a plug so you can set the screen to stay on when plugged in.
stan.s said:
This is interesting, as I keep thinking of switching to a Galaxy S because SE's so slow about updating to 2.1 (Maybe November?) and 2.2 which is a requirement for the latest Gmail and GDocs may not come until Spring 2011 if ever.
However, GPS is extraordinary on the X10. I live on the side of a hill and I can get a lock in 3 seconds,starting with 7/7 and then 8/8 sats by 30 seconds (every option turned on). Lattitude, Navigation, Maps, etc all work wonderfully.
WiFi and GPS are the two most 'additional' features for me on a phone. I have a bit of an issue with SE's Wifi as it's only working when the phone's awake and if the screen blanks, it switches to 3G. Leaves you tethered to a plug so you can set the screen to stay on when plugged in.
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I just realized that I use GPS more than I expected. I think 2.1 without multitouch is ok for me. I am still having daily random shutdowns though mine is limited to unplugging from AC only. I am still waiting for something to happen to Cappy cause I still like it.
I have an RMA phone that I updated OTA to JH7 and yesterday i had to drive out of state and about 20 minutes before I left I updated to Froyo 2.2 stock and my GPS worked perfectly the whole way there and back. Granted it was only about two hours of total drive time ( I am really close to the state border), but it never showed me off the path it set for me and when I passed the spot I was suppsed to go to, it showed me drive past it. So I have as stock a setup as possible and my GPS worked perfectly for me. I cant tell you how many sattelites I have or how many seconds it took to lock etc., but real world road test was great. i will use it tonight on my way to and from work and maybe repost now that I have had it loaded for a day.
I use cardio trainer to log distance when running etc. I used it daily when I got the phone in March and it worked great. Then in May it started not locking to my location. Now it doesn’t work at all. I have updated my phone and it still does not work.
I live in an area with a lot of tall trees. It seems like it stopped working when the leaves came out. Is the GPS on this phone that bad that it can’t lock through leaves? My old droid never had that problem and I used the very same program on it all last year.
Anything I can do to make the GPS work better?
HawkStream said:
I use cardio trainer to log distance when running etc. I used it daily when I got the phone in March and it worked great. Then in May it started not locking to my location. Now it doesn’t work at all. I have updated my phone and it still does not work.
I live in an area with a lot of tall trees. It seems like it stopped working when the leaves came out. Is the GPS on this phone that bad that it can’t lock through leaves? My old droid never had that problem and I used the very same program on it all last year.
Anything I can do to make the GPS work better?
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There are a number of threads on XDA and other forums about this issue--a Google search for "htc thunderbolt gps issues" will yield a long list of discussions. I've had excellent results, irrespective of which radio / ROM I'm using with the GPS Status/Tools app available from the Market.
Yup tried that and it did not help at all. Just ran 2 miles and Cardio Trainer said I went .4 miles. This phone sucks... If there is nothing that will fix this I'm going back to Verizon and make them give me a new phone.
It was probably just using cell towers, not true GPS.
Get the app "GPS Status" from the market.
Go to 'menu/tools'. Then manage a-GPS. Do a reset, then do a download.
Now go outdoors for a LONG while with GPS status running. It should start receiving and cataloging satellites. If you aren't seeing over 6 satellites and better then 8 meters accuracy, it is broken. Get it replaced by VZW.
If it is broken would a new TB fix it or should i just get a new Droid? I have been less than impressed with all the issues of the TB so far. Also how it still doesn’t have Netflix when so many other phones do.
Ok I did that... It found as many as 8 sats and had an error or 3m. So I will try cardio trainer again and see if it now works.
Aside from the standard Google Maps, are there any good GPS systems to go along with this phone? Should I just rely on Google Maps?
Google Maps should come with the built in Navigation and it works very well IMHO.
unclespoon said:
Google Maps should come with the built in Navigation and it works very well IMHO.
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Pre-render? Can you have satellite view pre-rendered?
I spent the day driving around in a roughly 25 miles radius, to put the gps of the device to the test. I used google maps as it came pre-installed on the phone and this was my first full day with it.
Gps works as a gps, and functions even with wireless and cellular service disabled. (duh, but had to check it wasn't getting location via 4G)
Worked extremely well, and the radius to my location only raised above 10 meters a few times. Generally speaking I feel comfortable in saying it'll peg the phone to 10 meters through gps alone pretty consistently.
This was at speed in a vehicle, and on foot through parking lots and such. Even though it said to within 10 meters, I found that on foot it pegged the phone to about 3 feet. (1 meter) I could tell this by coming to and crossing roads marked on the map, and being zoomed in gauging how far that road actually was in front of me)
Using GPS only for location services, I lost reception whenever I entered a building, but sometimes it would find it again. Some of the buildings I walked into have enough electrical interference that cell phones don't get reception, so it was a good run of places to test it.
I got a handful of errands run in the process, so it was a pretty win situation.
For an out of the box solution, i'm impressed. It did much better then my year and a half old bottom of the line garmin nuvi 255w. Granted I bought that as the cheapest one I could find at the time, so it's no surprise this phone has a much more advanced gps functionality.
One of the reasons I purchased this device was to replace my GPS. When I bought the GPS unit I wasn't sure it would be worth the money at the time. Since then i've capitalized on having it by getting a job that entails a lot of running around to different locations, and a GPS unit is a necessity for the work. I've been looking to get a better GPS unit then a low end model for a while now.
I'm definitely on the lookout for other GPS capable map apps to use for navigation - what's better and why?
I'm excited to finally try Satellite imagery on my next trip. Most coverage areas certainly cover the traveled highways, so it should be very interesting.
Now if I can just find that pesky windshield mount!
After a few days of heavy usage, i'll say that using google maps in satellite view for gps navigation in a vehicle absolutely chews through battery power.
Not too bad with regular map view.
Also, more time spent on foot gets me to reasonably often within 4 meters on foot in the more populated areas.
I've been intentionally not using my car charger while doing all my running around, it's giving me a good guage of how much battery it eats. Car charger is a necessity if using satellite view.
Edit:
Is there any way to download the google map database for offline browsing? I know you can pre-cache map data using the google labs option in the maps app, but can I download something like my state, for instance, and access it offline?
Anyone know if it works in flight or what the maximum altitude might be?