Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Here we will discuss the GPS system on the 800w. Give me your tips and tricks tell me your stories about your trips and how the GPS performed for you. This is what happened to me this week.

I used my GPS this week to guide me from home to Lake Charles Louisiana, I had issues. The rout from DFW to Lake Charles took me through some areas where the Sprint coverage isn't all that good. My phone rings all day long so its a chore to navigate and keep up with new issues at the same time. I had a total of 94 phone calls on my way to Lake Charles. At one point I was in the middle of some large trees so I got a warning, GPS signal low on the Sprint navigation screen then my 800w stopped tracking and had to be reset to lock again. Sprint navigation failed lost GPS signal then lost phone reception so no map updates. I wound up missing a turn and wound up at a dead end had to go back a couple of miles till I found a place with a signal to get the GPS going needless to say this was a little stressful. On my way back I used Live search for navigation I only zoomed in and out when I had signal, my 800w lost tracking a couple of time on the way back I am thinking this had to do with the number and frequency of phone calls. Once I had to soft reset and once I had to exit Live search then reopen to get the GPS going but all in all using Live search worked much better than Sprint navigation.

So that's my most recent story now tell me yours lets hear those tips as well

Dave

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I would just like to know if there is going to an app that is like sprint nav that gives voice directions like when to turn etc., only on windows live? or any third party apps that are free that do this?

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

The GPS doesn't work well on the 800w and there's no standalone mode. Palm knows about the problems and will address them with a firmware update.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Would you mind telling us how you learned that Palm intends to provide a firmware update for the stand-alone GPS problems? I haven't seen any mention of that before.
Thanks.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I actually thought i worked quite well, used it earlier today to get around los angeles and back. if it had turn by turn voice it would be awesome though. maybe there will be a hack or something

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I also think it works very well and fast. If I cold start my BT GPS receiver, it takes maybe about 30 seconds or more to boot up and acquire satellites. With the assisted GPS on the 800w, it takes about 2-3 seconds for it to acquire satellites from a cold start. Of course, it is Assisted GPS, so it will require Sprint's network. But it should be no problem, unless I happen to want to travel to the deep Borneo jungle.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I also get quick locks using GPS, however the accuracy is hit or miss...one day it's within 5 feet, other days its got me 50 feet away.

Having said that, the GPS in my 800w is better than in my Touch.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I live in NY and the GPS works great. I have used it a few times without a single problem. I have also never had any real issues with the signal to my phones in the tri-state area :)

I have been using it with google maps and its pretty much pinpoint.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

GPS is working very well for me--in NYC I get my location in about < 10 seconds and it's quite accurate.

I've used it with Google Maps, Live Search, GPS Today, Mologogo, Astro Navigator II, etc.

No complaints.

The "standalone" issue will be important for some, but not for my needs.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

My GPS Story:
A coworker injured herself and ended up cutting her arm quite badly. I ended taking her to one of the clinics that we use for workplace injuries. I looked it up in the Search button on Sprint Navigation and gave me the closest location to us. I did something I usually don't in that I relied the information to be accurate since I was not aware of one of these clincs in the area that the GPS had given. To my surprise there was a clinic there and we made it there in less than 10 minutes.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I actually like the today GPS plugin. It's pretty quick at finding your location and closest matches. My only complaint is that the results aren't sorted and can't be sorted by distance. This is a bit of a drawback if I didn't have GPS already in both of our vehicles.

Haven't received my MicroSD card yet so I haven't been able to install iGuidance but once I get it I'll try it out.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I live in Phoenix and I thought the gps worked fantastic. I have not tried it on road trips but in the city it's fantastic. I like how easy to use it was.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I'm quite happy with the GPS on mine (I use Garmin XT). Very fast locks.

It works where I expect it to work (normal travels as a consultant) - i.e. great GPS for a phone. When I want GPS off-road or on the water, I'll take a handheld GPS unit - better outdoors display and better battery life.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

I don't have the 800w, i have the 700wx, I am going to upgrade when my contract runs out. Do you have to pay the monthly fee to sprint to use the GPS? I know some of you mentioned that you used google maps, well, do you still have to pay sprint to use the GPS with google maps?

Thanks

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

yeah, my gps works flawless with google maps and im finna try to get tomom working on it

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

gps is included, no monthly fee, but its reccomended to get a simply everything plan.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

The GPS is just Ok. I will be keeping my dedicated GPS for real trips. The GPS does not work without a Sprint signal. The best thing about the Treo 800w GPS is Google Maps (Downloaded) that works like a champ. The built in map software does not sort my distance which is pretty stupid.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

The GPS works well for me, even in the mountains (Colorado). Really like the maps on the today screen, except as mentioned earlier that you can't sort by distances.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Garmin works great on it, there is a few bugs such as the satallite says there is no signal when there is. Although it says no signal most of the time, as long as it finds the Gps Driver it never has a problem or lag navigating. The biggest issue is that when you first start it up it wants to look for a bluetoothe all the time and you have to keep pressing search before it finds the phones blue toothe driver so that can delay you somewhat if your in a hurry. Over all once the the app finds the drivers it works great even though the signal bar works sometimes and not others.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Google maps works great for me too on the Treo 800w. I enter pizza, locate by GPS, and I get all the local pizzerias. Doesn't get much better than that. My nephew said his Mogul won't search via GPS, so he is a bit envious.

I like the Sprint Navigation myself. I have found it to be very accurate in the K.C. area.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Your nephew is either using an old ROM or doesn't known what he is doing. My Mogul will do *anything* in Google Maps that my Treo 800w will do. The Mogul can be placed in standalone mode so it is actually a better GPS device than the 800w. The Mogul GPS is more reliable (always works without needing to be hard/soft reset) and more compatible with other navigation packages too.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

:scratch: I've never had to reset my phone to use the GPS features at all and I've used them quite often. And I don't see how the GPS for the Mogul is any more compatible with say iGuidance than the GPS for the 800w would be...

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

100% correct. The GPS on the Mogul works in assisted or standalone mode and works every time. The GPS on the 800w can't touch that.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Again...I don't see how there's ANY facts behind these claims. They're just blank statements. Back it up with data and/or facts.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

there are many 800w verses Mogle threads arround please find one to make your comparisons in so we can keep this thread on topic

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Alright alright... I'll keep it on the 800w.

Me actually HAVING the phone and using the GPS instead of having some other phone, the fact is that I've never had to soft/hard reset my phone after using the GPS, an issue that I've heard the Touch Pro and some Moguls, both by HTC, have experienced. Sprint Navigation works flawlessly and so does iGuidance and Google Maps, and the GPS lock is pretty fast, even indoors. The ONLY gripe I have with it, and it's not even about the GPS itself because that works great, it's about the location search today plug-in. Results aren't sorted by distance which seems a bit strange. Other than that I'm very pleased to have a portable GPS right in my pocket :D

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Perhaps you don't have a Treo 800W? I went from a Mogul to 800W. The Mogul GPS works everywhere and the 800W GPS won't. I called Palm about this. The 800W Standalone GPS was disabled for some reason just prior to release. It isn't disabled on some of the 800Ws, but all of them. They fixed this on the newer Treo Pro, but it still is busted on the 800W.

So these are not "claims." The GPS problem is acknowledged with the 800W. There are multiple complaint threads on the Palm's own support fourms. The GPS is blocked from working if you are not in range of a Sprint land tower. It maybe trivial to some users. But people who purchased it for the standalone GPS, for example people who live in rural areas or travel outside the country, are screwed at this point.

I hope this clarifies matters. This is why the Mogul GPS works better, it is actually aGPS and true standalone GPS.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Agreed.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

Thank you! That's what I wanted to know ;-) And yes I have a Treo 800w...but since I always have signal I haven't run into this problem.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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...

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.

Re: Official 800w GPS discussion
 

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.