Samsung GPS Issues: Samsung Galaxy S Facing Problems With GPS Navigation
If you are planning to buy the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone anytime soon, perhaps you should take your time because the phone has GPS problems which prevent you from getting a precise lock on your location. While this may not be a real dampener if you are not planning to use the GPS feature that much, it is a flaw in the phone nonetheless.
And if you do plan to use it for GPS navigation or fitness tracking, then you will have a dud in your hands. Thankfully Samsung has promised to rectify this problem via phone updates it will release in September. Even the Samsung Vibrant and the Samsung Captivate have the same problem and the updates will affect these phones too .
And to allay your fears about the Epic 4G: it does not have a GPS problem. This has been revealed by both independent tests and an official statement from Samsung in the wake of the GPS issues surrounding the other phones. Both the network assisted (indoor) and outdoor GPS work fine on the Epic.
Google Maps gives pretty precise locations on the Epic 4G and thus you can go ahead and get the phone when it finally launches on the 31st of this month. While that is good news, you should hope that the updates actually take care of the GPS problems. Problems? Yes actually there are two at this moment on the Galaxy S, Vibrant and Captivate.
The first one as mentioned earlier is an inability to pin-point your location via GPS even with wireless networks turned on. At the most what you get is a location roughly off the mark by 1000-1500 meters, which to say the least is pretty useless.
The second problem and one that is related to the first is that the GPS circuitry and software are not working. Particularly the Galaxy S models are failing to convert GPS signals into precise coordinates and hence the problems. No home brew solutions have been developed for these problems so far and the hope rests solely on the promised firmware upgrades.
It is indeed baffling how most smartphones these days are coming out with glitches which are anything but minor.
Written by Jay Shah on August 21st, 2010
Nurturing a lifelong love affair with machines, Jay simply loves any tech that can make life easier, better, faster and more enjoyable. And with hundreds if not thousands of Gadgets, Apps, Games being launched everyday, there's more than enough out there to keep this hardcore techie occupied and obsessed!
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I am using Samsung Galaxi S (GT-I9000)for the last 5 months now and I am really not happy with it. It is not only Navigation there are many other problems as well.
Most of the time when some one call me my phone goes to voice messag, say that this number (my number)is turn off/bussy please leave a message and I receive a message as well that this person called you but left no message. But that time my phone is free and on.
Some time it dosn’t open the required site on the internet and when I restart my handset then I can open my required site.
These problems are not with me only, may friends are also coplainig the same.
There is no hardware problem with my set.
“…it will release in September…”
- September of what year??
“…when it finally launches on the 31st of this month…”
- Which month is that??
This is a plea to everyone on the Internet: Please provide the date when your article is written or published! Thank you.
Doesn’t work. That “fix” is a waste of time.
I am sure the problem is the Wifi, when it is on i think the phone uses this in prefferance to the gps, if the wifi is turned off it will still turn on buy itself and then cause the conflict with gps. I have tryed this a dozen times if you can keep the wifi from turning on the gps works fine. Keeping the wifi off seems to be prob. Switching between using the compass and checking drop down menu if you are quick you see wifi power down, go back into the compass and then back to the drop down menu you will catch wifi powering down. Hopefully it will be fixed will v2.2
I’ve got galaxy s, build number eclair.xwjg51 and no problem pin-pointing my location in google maps with only gps active down to 2 meters.
regards
[...] GPS issues on Samsung galaxy, it is interesting to see what has spurred the rise and rise of the Galaxy S mobiles? Surely [...]
I’ve had this phone (Captivate) for a few weeks- no amount of tweaking makes GPS work reliably. I’ve tried it on the road and on foot from Atlantic City up to Vermont- it doesn’t work. Location by Cell and/or Satellite is poor.
If it doesn’t work for you, I suggest you contact your carrier and Samsung. I know there is a fix in the works- but letting them know the extent of the problem can only help people with it. Don’t just complain on these boards- tell Samsung.
In general, this phone: Fantastic
GPS- Craptastic
Additionally/as an aside- The phone in general has worse cell reception than my BBerry which gets signal. (Both on AT&T) YMMV.
We all know none of them work, including yours. What?…are you with their marketing department?
Those who are saying they are pinpointing to five meters are lying, as evidenced by the fact that its the same post with three names. I went to att, we went through four devices, and not one would lock on. The blackberry torch and iphone had no issues.
Samsung confirms the problem, but has no idea at the moment what is causing it. If its hardware, you’re screwed.
Its not baffling when you consider that the phone was rushed to market to capture the iphone market while there is a wait list. If producers would create markets rather than try to capture them with a rushed pos, it wouldn’t happen (and our economy would not be tanking).
This is written on a captivate that is going back if samsung doesn’t fix it by day 29 of my purchase.
We heard you the first two times. The rest of us don’t have working GPS. Lucky you.