which GPS chip? - Galaxy S II Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting

I hope S II is equipped with the most amazing gps chip.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using XDA Premium App

ok good to know

......
Sent from my Captivate

since u opened this thread i might as well ask a question here....
has anyone seen a video or got any info about the S-II gps? is it same chit as galaxy s I gps? or did they do anything about the hardware bug?

no
Sent from my Computer

If you get your hands on one...
..would you mind posting an indepth analysis of the gps (navigation etc while driving in cities-country without agps support) in sgs2? Rest of the flaws in sgs were all fixed by xda and it was a brilliant phone. It saddens me to see people with prototypes fixating on lag etc which is easily fixable. If there is confirmation of working gps on this it will be well worth waiting even until summer. Almost tempted to pull the trigger for nexus s as soon as it lands with att friendly 3g as the ip is suffocating me

have you done any reaading.. agps does nothing for driving around.. it is only used to get an initial fix quicker.

lgkahn said:
have you done any reaading.. agps does nothing for driving around.. it is only used to get an initial fix quicker.
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Alright, my point is about general gps use. Lets forget agps and if someone can please confirm a working gps in sgs2 it will be the best phone ever.

Wish it has a powerful GPS chip and does not ruin the chip with athena design.

wait about a month and see some video reviews on the internet thats all you can do now

if sgs2 has a good gps system in it, im ready to sell my sgs for sgs2

Sources tell me that it uses miniature homing pigeons to calculate latitude and longitude. Lock on is a brisk 3 days. Still better than original galaxy s.

Related

Any JL5 Roms with working GPS..Help Us!!

I am a captivate owner and I am using Dilligafs 4.0 in captivate section of site. Flawless rom except we havent been able to get GPS to work at all. Wireless works for location but GPS does not work whatsoever. If someone can post their gps files and state the folder it is located in for me to try it would be of great assistance to us Captivate owners. Thanks in advance. Please no flaming I know this is a Vibrant forum but we Galaxy S owners should all work together for the greater cause of romunity....
momulah said:
I am a captivate owner and I am using Dilligafs 4.0 in captivate section of site. Flawless rom except we havent been able to get GPS to work at all. Wireless works for location but GPS does not work whatsoever. If someone can post their gps files and state the folder it is located in for me to try it would be of great assistance to us Captivate owners. Thanks in advance. Please no flaming I know this is a Vibrant forum but we Galaxy S owners should all work together for the greater cause of romunity....
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Pretty much every recent ROM I've used has had very good GPS performance. I'm currently on Master's Axura 2.2.5.9. But I've tried both Eugene's Gingerbread Clone and TW's Nero v3 and both have properly working GPS for me. I'm no dev so I don't know what files have it working so well but someone might.
Nero V3, Eugene's R2 both have properly working GPS.
I have trouble working gps on nero v3...very slow. I went back to jk6 modem and this solved all issues.
Try "GPS Restore" from the Android Market, published by Samsung for the Galaxy S phones. Worked wonders on my phone. Sats lock up in 2 seconds flat!
momulah said:
I am a captivate owner and I am using Dilligafs 4.0 in captivate section of site. Flawless rom except we havent been able to get GPS to work at all. Wireless works for location but GPS does not work whatsoever. If someone can post their gps files and state the folder it is located in for me to try it would be of great assistance to us Captivate owners. Thanks in advance. Please no flaming I know this is a Vibrant forum but we Galaxy S owners should all work together for the greater cause of romunity....
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Click to collapse
You are in the wrong place my friend. You need to look on the captivate site on xda. you won't find a solution for your problem here
I had the same issue when i upgraded from JL4 to JL5 on Eugene's Ginger Clone. Flash the JL4 modem back over it and it will work flawlessly - I am living proof.
fF
nero v3 here, indoor lock with 20 seconds, usually within 5, 15 foot accuracy.
Nero V3 perfect GPS. Less than 3 seconds!
nero v3 and M9 gps working
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
Master's Axura 2.2.5.9 is the only ROM that worked for me for the GPS. Why don't you download the ROM and check the GPS files
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=891657
i duno..my GPS indoor never lock up as you guys~~on Nero V3. i duno wut's wrong with it. living in brooklyn, nyc. with the wirless it lock me on 2 blocks away where i am...><
What next? G2 owners posting in the dev section having touchscreen issues, justifying their actions because the vibrant and G2 both have touchscreens? Every time I visit these forums this crap gets more and more depressing......
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA App
No more responses unless you can answer his question
He just wants to know if someone can point him to the gps files in any of the roms. If you can do that, respond, if not no point talking about x rom locks in x secs!
Indoor lock that quick?...how? Did you perform the hardware fix or have a newer vibrant?
harabinger66 said:
He just wants to know if someone can point him to the gps files in any of the roms. If you can do that, respond, if not no point talking about x rom locks in x secs!
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Here is the deal, the GPS files for the captivate, ARE NOT the same as the Vibrant, so it is pointless to post in the vibrant section.......
And he probably has a driver issue, we have no idea what he really wants, and i believe even he has not idea..... What are the "gps files"??? Does he means drivers (inserted in the kernel?). So yes this post is absolutely pointless in this site
While stefan.buddle may have been a little rude, he is right!
Essentially there are 2 basic problems with ALL the SGS phones. One the software was not 100% when released, now they have a patch that supposedly fixes the GPS, but it works for a while then get flaky.
The other is a hardware issue. The way the antenna in the SGS is made it is a spring clip that pushes against the antenna that is mounted on the backside of the internal case. alot of the phones especially the earlier manf.dated phones ,,,this clip doesn't touch completely resulting in a poor or inconsistent contact to the GPS antenna so poor locks.
So, to correct you have to go open the phone up and CAREFULLY bend this clip up to engage. To assist this not Squashing back down (my fix) cut a piece of the peanut cell foam to wedge in between the clip opening (the flat area) this will give you proper contact and WOW way better reception. Perfect? no way but it will be usable for sure !! also you clean the contact etc... common sense stuff....
Now remember this is not a tom-tom it even in the best working condition will not be as good as that (Samsung calls this GPS assist). But, you will be way happier......
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878970 This is the sticky that shows how t odo this. Hope this helps.........if so give a thank you
oka1 said:
Essentially there are 2 basic problems with ALL the SGS phones. One the software was not 100% when released, now they have a patch that supposedly fixes the GPS, but it works for a while then get flaky.
The other is a hardware issue. The way the antenna in the SGS is made it is a spring clip that pushes against the antenna that is mounted on the backside of the internal case. alot of the phones especially the earlier manf.dated phones ,,,this clip doesn't touch completely resulting in a poor or inconsistent contact to the GPS antenna so poor locks.
So, to correct you have to go open the phone up and CAREFULLY bend this clip up to engage. To assist this not Squashing back down (my fix) cut a piece of the peanut cell foam to wedge in between the clip opening (the flat area) this will give you proper contact and WOW way better reception. Perfect? no way but it will be usable for sure !! also you clean the contact etc... common sense stuff....
Now remember this is not a tom-tom it even in the best working condition will not be as good as that (Samsung calls this GPS assist). But, you will be way happier......
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878970 This is the sticky that shows how t odo this. Hope this helps.........if so give a thank you
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Click to collapse
That fix is for the vibrant, are you sure is also for the captivate also?????
I have had a captivate apart they look the same in the inside The Epic is different I have not pulled a Fascinate open to know what is what with them I would guess they are closer to the Epic
I enclosed a picture so you can see the tab touches a piece on the back internal case. I like taking things apart, if you do take it apart go to a music store and get 2 medium flat guitar picks it makes it easier and you do not damage the chrome trim. Take the screws out and then slide between the snap case connection with one get it in then put the other in and work them around about 30 % of the separation and voila' !!! it will open pretty easy. putting back together is way easier snaps in just make sure you get the little radio wire antenna out of the way
gagb1967 said:
That fix is for the vibrant, are you sure is also for the captivate also?????
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Check the Captivate forums, they have a thread with the equivalent hardware antenna fix.

[Q] why does the Captivate have Gingerbread working GPS and we don't?

This isn't meant to be a whine post, I'm just asking so I can better understand the Galaxy S series.
The Captivate is part of the Galaxy S family, why did Samsung release working Gingerbread with GPS but the Vibrant gets nothing? Isn't it the same hardware, just different form?
the captivate has a working gps because of the way samsung uses the software to call gps on the i9k compared to how the vibrant uses software calls to the gps.
The vibrant is different enough to where i9k stuff doesn't work, but the captivate works in the same way.
(hope fully the way i worded things isn't to confusing).
geoffcorey said:
the captivate has a working gps because of the way samsung uses the software to call gps on the i9k compared to how the vibrant uses software calls to the gps.
The vibrant is different enough to where i9k stuff doesn't work, but the captivate works in the same way.
(hope fully the way i worded things isn't to confusing).
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Click to collapse
Hm interesting. So when coding for each separate Galaxy S device do they start with the same base for each and then just branch off that and modify it however the carrier has specified? Or would each be built from scratch individually? It kind of seems like each would be made separately if calls to the gps are used differently on hardware that's very similar.
cool, thanks for the explanation geoffcorey, i understand it perfectly now.
jneal9 said:
Hm interesting. So when coding for each separate Galaxy S device do they start with the same base for each and then just branch off that and modify it however the carrier has specified? Or would each be built from scratch individually? It kind of seems like each would be made separately if calls to the gps are used differently on hardware that's very similar.
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Click to collapse
As of JVH, one of the latest GB builds, there is very little difference.
Example. When I first started porting the Simply Galaxy/Honey series we were working with Froyo(2.2.1) and a lot had to be changed out or fixed, GPS, wifi, data, key mapping plus more. Because it was still Froyo based a lot of the code was still the same as ours so we could simply replace the GPS files and others and it worked. Gingerbread calls GPS completely different so we can't just slide our files in. The good thing though is that, I believe, Samsung is moving to a more universal build. On GB wifi is the same, actually almost everything. The only thing needed to port GB was a minor change to key mapping and headset and everything works with the exception of GPS.
Now as far as that goes the GPS chips are different and require different drivers in order to work. At least that's my understanding of the GPS. We Vibrant owners may have gotten the shaft when it came to GPS.
Sent from my GT-I9000 using XDA Premium App
Thanks for the info explodingboy70.
Ha, and yeah, I think we knew we had the shaft from the get go... (Entire Vibrant crap GPS debacle)
Welcome to T-mobile!! Customer service is fantastic but product service/development is garbage. But look at it this way; soon enough we'll have crappy customer service and better products, lmao.
That is one good question I was thinking of the same thing.
Thanks Guys
djquick said:
Welcome to T-mobile!! Customer service is fantastic but product service/development is garbage. But look at it this way; soon enough we'll have crappy customer service and better products, lmao.
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I don't really want to be an AT&TMo customer -_-
ababypanda said:
I don't really want to be an AT&TMo customer -_-
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Click to collapse
I'm going to be a Verizon customer in a year. Least I'll be getting the shaft from a company that has great phones.
So we Vibrant GPS is not working with Gingerbread at all??
So we Vibrant GPS is not working with Gingerbread at all??
GPS works in several of our Ginger roms. It can just be kind of sketchy at times.

[Q] GPS Differences (Vibrant vs. Nexus S)

My question is this:
What is the difference between the GPS hardware on the T-Mobile Vibrant 3G and the (original) Nexus S?
If the hardware is the same, would the drivers for the Nexus S (which is running 2.3.5) work on a rooted Vibrant (also running a 2.3.5)?
I'm assuming that someone has already tried this and that's why we're using Angry GPS and such.
If not, what are the differences and how can we convince *cough - force - cough* Samsung to update the driver so that we can get a great Gingerbread ROM developed?
To all the dev's out there, I appreciate all that you do for us. Keep up the great work!
-Steve
I experienced a huge difference in GPS after i got custom rom. Now i can lock satellites in few mins where as i couldnt ever do it while i was in stock Froyo.
I believe they use completely different gps chips or wed have functioning gps by now.
Its not as trivial as i wish it were, unfortunately
Sent from a cell tower to the XDA server to you.
mifac said:
I experienced a huge difference in GPS after i got custom rom. Now i can lock satellites in few mins where as i couldnt ever do it while i was in stock Froyo.
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Mine is just the opposite. I get quick locks on Froyo and get get a consistent one on Gingerbread.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda premium
younix258 said:
I believe they use completely different gps chips or wed have functioning gps by now.
Its not as trivial as i wish it were, unfortunately
Sent from a cell tower to the XDA server to you.
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I agree that it's nothing trivial and please don't misread my statement as "Jeez, this should be soooo easy" cause I know it's not.
My follow-up question is this:
With the Nexus series (N1, NS) who provides the updates to the GPS when they get the new, stock OS? Does HTC update the GPS software for the Nexus 1 and Samsung for the Nexus S?
Or does Google provide the updates?
If it's the device manufacturer, there should be some sort of petition or clause that states that if they support the Nexus devices, they should have no reason to keep from supporting the similar devices. The Galaxy S and Nexus S are so close in hardware it's not even funny.
What's the best way to contact Samsung and require them to update the GPS hardware? Or am I simply being naive ?
Again, props to the dev's that work to make our phones work!
-Steve

Gps

I have had the captivate for over a year now and have been plagued with terrible gps performance.
Anyhow I am considering an upgrade to the sgs2. But before I upgrade I'd like to know how the performance is on the sgs2's gps. I'm sure samsung improved the gps for this model, but I was hoping to confirm it here.
Thanks
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk
I also had a captivate for a year. I never had too big of issues with it. It always got a lock ... eventually. The GPS on the SGS II is definately better, but to me still feels like its slow to get a lock. My wife's iPhone 3GS locks faster than my SGS II.
You have 30 days up decide if you want you keep it. I don't think it will be possible for this phone to disappoint you.
Sent from my SGS II
A simple search would have shown a dozen or so threads on GPS performance. They all say the same thing.
the GPS on this phone is eons better than the captivate. On a 3 hour trip from NY to PA, it dropped the signal once. I had to actually reboot the phone to get the GPS to pick up again but it was fine after that. That was the first time I had to reboot to get the GPS to work. Otherwise, its fine.
I get very fast locks ... Even in my house
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I777 using xda premium
OK. So it gets fast locks which is good but the real acid test is navigation. And not on big straight highways but on surface streets with lots of turns. Does it do this well? Does it need to sit in line of sight to the sky in your car (i.e. on the dashboard) to work or can you drop it in a cup holder and have it track you accurately? GPS was the Achilles heel of the Captivate. I nearly threw mine out the window several times. This was the Captivate experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXM_g3mqew
we all agree, GPS on the captivate was not good, although the model i got was OK but still took some time to get a lock and forget about starting the cappy GPS from a moving vehicle.
BUT - the GPS on the SGS2 is SICK !
Samsung went all out to make it a non issue. Will be interested what they did this time - did they use a better chip from a better maker or what, maybe soon we will know.
I had an unlocked vibrant for awhile and similarly to the captivate, the gospel was spotty.
The GS2 has substantially better gps. I haven't used it consistently to give you a full impression about it;however, it seems to lock and track well from past experience. My Atrix has excellent gps as well.
ianwood said:
OK. So it gets fast locks which is good but the real acid test is navigation. And not on big straight highways but on surface streets with lots of turns. Does it do this well? Does it need to sit in line of sight to the sky in your car (i.e. on the dashboard) to work or can you drop it in a cup holder and have it track you accurately? GPS was the Achilles heel of the Captivate. I nearly threw mine out the window several times. This was the Captivate experience:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZXM_g3mqew
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my 3 hour trip was 75% highway and 25% city (philadelphia and its surrounding areas). The city had a glitch once where it thought i was a block or two off but it self corrected within 10 seconds.
Cool, thanks for ask of the replies. It appears samsung improved gps for the sgs2. If I get one I will definitely test the gps thoroughly within the first 30 days.
I just thought it was sad that my sons cheapo htc aria had excellent gps compared to the captivate. It would lock and track better than most dedicated gps devices.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk
sblees said:
Cool, thanks for ask of the replies. It appears samsung improved gps for the sgs2. If I get one I will definitely test the gps thoroughly within the first 30 days.
I just thought it was sad that my sons cheapo htc aria had excellent gps compared to the captivate. It would lock and track better than most dedicated gps devices.
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using Tapatalk
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It was not just the us variants of the sgs that had issues the i9000 phones had crappy gps, and even my launch captivate had decent but nothing like my i777 sgs2. All the time it took me to type this, my phone's gps now states I am in the correct building via google maps lol where as my Captivate would usually say I am a block to 5 blocks away!
HTH,
Charlie
This has the best GPS performance I've ever had on a device. Mine consistently locks on in under 7 seconds .
axis01 said:
A simple search would have shown a dozen or so threads on GPS performance. They all say the same thing.
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And yet you link to none of them.

[Q] So how bad is the GPS / 911 situation?

I want a device that "just works". But I also want a relatively current version of Android (4.1+).
I don't like spending more time trying to get my device to work than actually using the device.
I've been getting rid of my older devices, and I'm probably getting rid of my Galaxy S 4G next. There has never been an official CyanogenMod release for it, and the current software doesn't work with the GPS.
I noticed the Galaxy S Vibrant had official CM and AOKP releases. Great! I can install a stable release and be done with it... But then I started reading about the GPS issues. From what I've read:
GPS doesn't work right. There are patches you can try, but then they break 911.
Is that the current situation? I have to pick between GPS or 911 if I want to use a Jelly Bean ROM on the Vibrant?
From what Iv heard the 911 issue is compleatly fixed. And GPS on this phone is complete and total s*it
Sent from my SGH-T959 using xda app-developers app
OK, I've been playing with the Vibrant/SGH-T959 on CM 10.1.2 for a few days.
GPS will usually see 10-13 satellites and get a lock within a few seconds. Accuracy has been as good as 20 feet. (I've only been testing this indoors.)
...If it works.
Twice now it seemed like GPS just "died". I had to reboot to get it working again. I see on the CM bug tracker (http://code.google.com/p/vibrant-cm/issues/list) that GPS can randomly crash.
^Try the gps hardware fix, my gps was absolutely awful before but now it works great. There is a tutorial in the Bible thread showing how to do it. You basically bend the copper conductor up slightly to help it make contact. Samsung really messed up the design or rushed it , simply bending the copper up fixes the issue.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk 2
iTz KeeFy said:
^Try the gps hardware fix, my gps was absolutely awful before but now it works great. There is a tutorial in the Bible thread showing how to do it. You basically bend the copper conductor up slightly to help it make contact. Samsung really messed up the design or rushed it , simply bending the copper up fixes the issue.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk 2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
My T959 has a "10.10" date on it, which should be new enough to have whatever improvement Samsung implemented (mentioned in the hardware fix thread).
I'm not too concerned with the the reception. When it works, it can get a lock from a fresh reboot in under 2 minutes. The signal ain't so bad. I don't expect to use this for navigation.
The problem is when GPS "dies". I don't know if it happens after deep sleep, or what. I'd rather it work all the time, even with a bad signal, than sometimes work well, and sometimes not work at all.
Edit, here's a description of what it does:
http://code.google.com/p/vibrant-cm/issues/detail?id=5
That's from August 2012. It still does this, even with the latest CM10 August 2013 builds.
Yea I personally use a Froyo ROM and jilette's gps fix, which has everything working. I also have issues with gps on Jelly bean ROMs. It's give and take really, that's why I prefer Froyo, it has everything I need.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using Tapatalk 2

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