[unni.ak]

Originally Posted by shapath

Thanks mr unni for your continuous info. what about Updates for the Maps and any idea on their "stand" in providing updates. possible share the setting you have mentioned-to enhance the GPS Accessibilty- which would be helpful to other users too.Thanks.

Map updates are released every quarter. They have different map upgrade plans which are available, and can range from Rs999 to Rs1999. They are providing the latest map with the Voxtel Unit.

The settings that were changed was after a lot of "click this, now check reception, hmmm...., now try this" sorts. So it was more of a toubleshooting, than any particular sequence of steps.

[unni.ak]

The GPS reception problem seems to have been solved. Used it again today and it triangulated in under 3mins. cheers:

[hondadude]

Originally Posted by unni.ak

The GPS reception problem seems to have been solved. Used it again today and it triangulated in under 3mins. cheers:

Is 3 min the norm for these GPS units ? GPS on my Nokia N82 is usually ready within 30 seconds.

[jassi]

Originally Posted by hondadude

Is 3 min the norm for these GPS units ? GPS on my Nokia N82 is usually ready within 30 seconds.

30secs or lesser is what it takes for my htc diamond too - ofcourse I am using google maps and not any of these commercial gps apps

Also I do agree that for car use the google maps font is way too small. I can barely read the major roads, but the landmarks and the smaller roads are unreadable, unless I stop on the side and go very close to the windscreen mounted htc diamond's screen. Besides google map has no routing for india (although maps are very detailed - even gives the names of my society wings and names the location of swimming pool, gym, etc!!!) and so is only useful for the occassional checking of where you are, when lost.

I am not sure if running satguide or mapsmyindia on a phone is going to be any better as the font is going to be as unreadable as google maps, right??

[unni.ak]

Originally Posted by hondadude

Is 3 min the norm for these GPS units ? GPS on my Nokia N82 is usually ready within 30 seconds.

No, 3mins is not the norm. In this instance it was a huge improvement from 10-15mins on the first day to under 3mins.

There are others with mobile-phone GPS and stand-alone units that get reception in under a minute. This was the first time I had switched on the GPS after about 20hours, and as per my understanding it can take 2-3min for the first location of satellites. Once that gets stored in memory, the time taken reduces further. Will've to check it out over the course of a day or two to come to a complete conclusion.

Thanks for the info though, I'll have a benchmark.

[laluks]

My PDA uses Assisted GPS. If the AGPS file is updated it gets it within 30 seconds, else around 3 minutes. If the file ofr AGPS is not updated then it has to wait till it downloads from the satellite.

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by jassi

30secs or lesser is what it takes for my htc diamond too - ofcourse I am using google maps and not any of these commercial gps apps

Also I do agree that for car use the google maps font is way too small. I can barely read the major roads, but the landmarks and the smaller roads are unreadable, unless I stop on the side and go very close to the windscreen mounted htc diamond's screen. Besides google map has no routing for india (although maps are very detailed - even gives the names of my society wings and names the location of swimming pool, gym, etc!!!) and so is only useful for the occassional checking of where you are, when lost.

I am not sure if running satguide or mapsmyindia on a phone is going to be any better as the font is going to be as unreadable as google maps, right??

My HTC 3300 PDA+GPS receiver combo takes about 3 mts first thing in the morning, after that it takes anytime from 1mt to 3 mts depending on the Look-up angle. Satguide maps are more descriptive and functionally much better than google maps with navigation, routing etc., (on the same PDA I used google maps through GPRS Airtel for 3 months to check how it's better and cancelled out after 3 months, not better).

The major problem with PDA is readability, I too have problems reading, the fonts too small and will have to depend on someone else in the car to read out the bearings; the roads and graphics are visible without effort. I feel a bigger screen is a must for it to be meaningful to the driver.

Unni, thanks for sharing your experiences, please keep posting as much as you can, this would help us understand nigglies if any with the rig and the software.

--Ramky

[rkbharat]

ramkya1, I hope you are runing QuickGPS tool which download the latest satellite data valid for 2-3 days. That speeds up the detection of satellite.

Though Satnav is great for navigation, I still feel Google maps have more information for location names. Satnav sometimes just gives the road names.

PDA is bit of problem while you are driving, but it is very useful when your are travelling different places without your car.

You can not carry, that big GPS unit in your pocket. Also I selected PDA over GPS unit, because I realized that I will be using the GPS only when I am travelling out of Delhi-NCR, that also to some new place. So GPS unit will just be lying in the car as another gadget, most of the time. But I can keep using PDA as mobile and always have GPS unit in my pocket.

my 2 coins

Originally Posted by ramkya1

My HTC 3300 PDA+GPS receiver combo takes about 3 mts first thing in the morning, after that it takes anytime from 1mt to 3 mts depending on the Look-up angle. Satguide maps are more descriptive and functionally much better than google maps with navigation, routing etc., (on the same PDA I used google maps through GPRS Airtel for 3 months to check how it's better and cancelled out after 3 months, not better).

The major problem with PDA is readability, I too have problems reading, the fonts too small and will have to depend on someone else in the car to read out the bearings; the roads and graphics are visible without effort. I feel a bigger screen is a must for it to be meaningful to the driver.

--Ramky

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by rkbharat

ramkya1, I hope you are runing QuickGPS tool which download the latest satellite data valid for 2-3 days. That speeds up the detection of satellite.

Though Satnav is great for navigation, I still feel Google maps have more information for location names. Satnav sometimes just gives the road names.

PDA is bit of problem while you are driving, but it is very useful when your are travelling different places without your car.

You can not carry, that big GPS unit in your pocket. Also I selected PDA over GPS unit, because I realized that I will be using the GPS only when I am travelling out of Delhi-NCR, that also to some new place. So GPS unit will just be lying in the car as another gadget, most of the time. But I can keep using PDA as mobile and always have GPS unit in my pocket.

my 2 coins

I haven't found any problems in speed of acquisition for my PDA and have not explored any other option to speed it up. Will do some reading on Quick GPS.

Satnavs most of the times road names, except in Metros and Major cities, it has recently added lots of POI's which are named, this improvement is of great value. Yes, Google is great with street even mall / block names.

I rarely use the PDA for anything other than for GPS, in fact, the phone is rarely used. It would be more useful if the GPS is built in, mine has an external BT receiver pared with my PDA, lugging it around is a pain.

A big GPS unit is good for people traveling continuously and who uses it extensively and long. From what I have seen with many friends; these gizmos are bought for fancy value due to peer / add pressure, used extensively in the first few months, then looses shine and just stay as add-ons or ornamental pieces for show-piece value.

--Ramky
=====

[rkbharat]

Oh Ok, I guess your PDA is then HTC 3600 and not 3300, because 3300 comes with inbuilt GPS, which I am using. And QuickGPS come as an installed app in HTC 3300.

Originally Posted by ramkya1

I haven't found any problems in speed of acquisition for my PDA and have not explored any other option to speed it up. Will do some reading on Quick GPS.

Satnavs most of the times road names, except in Metros and Major cities, it has recently added lots of POI's which are named, this improvement is of great value. Yes, Google is great with street even mall / block names.

I rarely use the PDA for anything other than for GPS, in fact, the phone is rarely used. It would be more useful if the GPS is built in, mine has an external BT receiver pared with my PDA, lugging it around is a pain.

A big GPS unit is good for people traveling continuously and who uses it extensively and long. From what I have seen with many friends; these gizmos are bought for fancy value due to peer / add pressure, used extensively in the first few months, then looses shine and just stay as add-ons or ornamental pieces for show-piece value.

--Ramky
=====

[bigman]

Originally Posted by hondadude

Is 3 min the norm for these GPS units ? GPS on my Nokia N82 is usually ready within 30 seconds.

From a cold boot it can take several minutes.

Using a HTC Kaiser and a HTC Diamond I can get a fix from cold inside the house in about a minute. Outside the house a fix in about 30 seconds is not a problem. However I do not even bother trying on my Omnia as the GPS is very poor even with AGPS turned on.

Quick GPS lasts about 6/7 days before you need to d/l again. Also it does not work on all HTC phones.

[unni.ak]

Originally Posted by ramkya1

A big GPS unit is good for people traveling continuously and who uses it extensively and long. From what I have seen with many friends; these gizmos are bought for fancy value due to peer / add pressure, used extensively in the first few months, then looses shine and just stay as add-ons or ornamental pieces for show-piece value.

--Ramky
=====

Just an update on the reception. It has improved again and is under 1min now.

Ramky, what you have said is so true. In my case its a bit different though, for me its has a safety aspect too. I don't travel extensively, maybe a trip once in 2months, but I love to drive at night and this will help me in staying on course more or less. Agreed that it may not be more than 80% accurate, still. The reduced prices also helped!!!

[lancer_rit]

Originally Posted by hondadude

Is 3 min the norm for these GPS units ? GPS on my Nokia N82 is usually ready within 30 seconds.

Cold Start always take longer than warm starts. And the sensitivity of the GPS receiver matters a lot. My N95 gets a cold start lock in several minutes while a Garmin Sirf III device would do this in a minute or less. It also depends on obstructions in the area like tall buildings or dense cover of trees.

AGPS speeds up GPS lock by reducing the #computations to be made - N82 and N95 enable this, so in some cases lock is quite fast. However, you do need GPRS access in the place where you are trying this.

Finally, if one is already driving before getting a GPS lock, it can take longer as the position itself is changing ...

BTW, you can make this test. Switch off your phone, and travel to a new location. Turn on your phone and GPS. My experience is with my phone is that it will take longer than 30s. Also, it depends on whether the cell towers nearby are already in the database of Nokia AGPS servers ...

[lancer_rit]

Originally Posted by jassi

Also I do agree that for car use the google maps font is way too small. I can barely read the major roads, but the landmarks and the smaller roads are unreadable, unless I stop on the side and go very close to the windscreen mounted htc diamond's screen. Besides google map has no routing for india (although maps are very detailed - even gives the names of my society wings and names the location of swimming pool, gym, etc!!!) and so is only useful for the occassional checking of where you are, when lost.

I am not sure if running satguide or mapsmyindia on a phone is going to be any better as the font is going to be as unreadable as google maps, right??

Well, that can happen depending on what your preference is for font size and depending on eyesight/power etc. For me, the Google maps size is quite fine and I have used it extensively. In some cases, I just zoom in one level more for more detail/bigger size.

I just bought the mapmyindia iNav WF, and been quite disappointed with the user interface. One thing they do though is print in very large fonts including in caps - no way to change this Also, the printing of apt names is in very large font and in caps. Lot of the times, long apt names ar truncated on left or right edge of the screen, and the software does not have the intelligence to either show the full name or no name.. Road names only pop-up at high zoom levels only and again are clumsily positioned and sized. Navigation in the trial worked ok if you can find a point close to your destination.
Cheers,

[ramkya1]

Originally Posted by rkbharat

Oh Ok, I guess your PDA is then HTC 3600 and not 3300, because 3300 comes with inbuilt GPS, which I am using. And QuickGPS come as an installed app in HTC 3300.

Hai RKB,

Right on on that, mine is a HTC P 3400, no GPS built in. Its much faster as it runs on WB 5, higher HTC models run on SB6 which zaps the ram and makes it very slow.

All models with GPS after 2007 come with SIRF III chipset which is 3 times faster than the old chipset. So that being a given on most sets; it's the loop-up angle of the set with clear sky to at least 3 satellites that would decide the lock in time. I read somewhere, SIRF III can theoretically lock into more than 16 satellites on a clear day.

--Ramky
======