Official 800w GPS discussion

[hippity.hoppity]

No standalone GPS on the 800w. Simply not possible because of the bugs. Confirmed by Palm as a bug.

[rdm]

Originally Posted by Big D5

I just want to throw in some personal experience here. I travel a lot, I can tell you with out a doubt that Sprint navigation needs a tower signal to track your location this is true it wont work at all with out it, but live search works much better on my 800w. I drove from Fort Stockton Texas to Fort Worth Texas last week there are some stretches of highway 18 that have no Sprint signal but my GPS continued to track my location, the map was completely blank because the maps couldn't update but the GPS was still tracking. If what you say is true please explain how this is happening. This is not the first time I have experienced this, could you link me to where you are getting your information I would like a read.

You need a tower to start the GPS using programs. If you start in range of a tower and then you drive out of a tower range it will hold for a while (from my tests about 10 to 15 minutes) and then GPS stops functioning.

Test: Next time you are in a location with absolutely (for certain) no tower signal, cycle your 800w with a soft reset and try to acquire GPS sats. You will see. No go no matter how long you wait.

aGPS has certain benefits. Standalone has certain benefits. 800W is advertised as having both. It doesn't.

[Big D5]

Originally Posted by hippity.hoppity

No standalone GPS on the 800w. Simply not possible because of the bugs. Confirmed by Palm as a bug.

I have looked around the Palm support forums for this but have not found anything could you direct me to a thread so I can add my complaint.

[DavidIQ]

This one seems to be the long-standing one:

http://forums.palm.com/palm/board/me...date_ascending

I have to ask though...why is standalone GPS soooooo important that some of those people are complaining? Simply because it was an advertised feature and now they feel cheated so they feel the need to complain? Or is there some usefulness for standalone GPS? I can't see myself in a situation where I don't have any signal at all except inside buildings and standalone GPS is pretty useless in that situation.

[DavidIQ]

Nevermind...after a while of reading and understanding what the big hubbub is about I kind of understand what the big deal is. We have GPS in both of our vehicles so it's not like we'll be using our phones as GPS much and our area is covered pretty well by Sprint service anyways.

However...I did spot some interesting things. Like the mention in the user's manual about setting up the GPS as standalone. I wonder if the whole problem has to do with Sprint and not the device itself...

[acs12798]

Someone at Treocentral said they spoke to an engineer and the engineer admitted it was a software, not a hardware issue. He said it was a last minute issue and was taken out of the rom.

[xdalaw]

Here's a very depressing update from Palm, via wmexperts.com:
http://discussion.wmexperts.com/show...0&postcount=44

[DavidIQ]

It's a little shady really for some of those posters to say that after a while it loses GPS connectivity. The Mogul does the same thing if it doesn't have a clear line of sight to the sky. I've experienced this with my wife's Mogul and if I'm in a car the GPS connection is either crappy or it loses it's position fix if I don't have the phone on the dash or have the phone in my hand sticking out the window. Now if you tell me that you're walking in the middle of a park and you lose GPS connectivity then that's a different story...

Needless to say GPS will need a little bit of the network to get the time but I wonder if that's even necessary...if the network is available it should probably switch to the phone's time if it's that important.

[crazie.eddie]

Originally Posted by DavidIQ

It's a little shady really for some of those posters to say that after a while it loses GPS connectivity. The Mogul does the same thing if it doesn't have a clear line of sight to the sky. I've experienced this with my wife's Mogul and if I'm in a car the GPS connection is either crappy or it loses it's position fix if I don't have the phone on the dash or have the phone in my hand sticking out the window. Now if you tell me that you're walking in the middle of a park and you lose GPS connectivity then that's a different story...

Needless to say GPS will need a little bit of the network to get the time but I wonder if that's even necessary...if the network is available it should probably switch to the phone's time if it's that important.

I've conducted tests of my own and have posted on WMExperts (aka TreoCentral), regarding GPS on the 800w. I also own a BT GPS receiver, which I've used on my 700wx. I've never lost my GPS position with the BT receiver, even with the receiver in my front pocket next to some change, while driving in the car. I have lost my GPS position awhile later, of after turning off the phone radio on the 800w. This is while driving with my 800w being on top of the dashboard and a clear view of the blue sky.

I live in the rural suburbs, so no tall buildings to interfere with GPS signals. I have gone out on my driveway and waited for about 15 minutes, with the phone radio off, to see if I would acquire a GPS position. I was never able to acquire a GPS position. I guess I could try waiting longer to see if I would ever pick up a signal. But as far as my tests are concerned, the GPS loses positioning after awhile of turning off the phone radio.

[rdm]

Originally Posted by DavidIQ

It's a little shady really for some of those posters to say that after a while it loses GPS connectivity. The Mogul does the same thing if it doesn't have a clear line of sight to the sky. I've experienced this with my wife's Mogul and if I'm in a car the GPS connection is either crappy or it loses it's position fix if I don't have the phone on the dash or have the phone in my hand sticking out the window. Now if you tell me that you're walking in the middle of a park and you lose GPS connectivity then that's a different story...

Needless to say GPS will need a little bit of the network to get the time but I wonder if that's even necessary...if the network is available it should probably switch to the phone's time if it's that important.

Shady? The 800w loses signal even walking in the middle of the park in a few minutes. GPS does not need network to get the time. My handheld GPS has a bigger screen, a nice processor, windows CE, map licenses and routing software and it cost $100. It gets a signal in ten seconds with no network contact.

I dont know why I would or should carry it anymore than I would carry a dedicated mp3 player if I purchased an expensive handset promoting standalone GPS.