Tell Samsung yourself that GPS is worthless - www.galaxyshelp.com

[ultra spikey]

Samsung just released their official help site for the Galaxy S. I just finished a chat session with tech support concerning the GPS issues. Basically, he said they are aware of it and the engineers are working on it. If enough of us report the issue, I'm sure they will feel the pressure to release a fix to us ASAP.

You dont need to register, when it ask you if you have registered you phone, just hit "yes". Then it will bring you to ways you can contact them.

[jmercil]

good call.

sent from SVGS using the Almighty "Android" app

[extorian]

The GPS on my Samsung Galaxy S is awesome. It took about 40 seconds to get a lock the very first time out of the box, and now consistently gets a lock in under 5 seconds. Once I let it download the almanac information from the satellites for 15 minutes this lock time has improved further. It's noticeably faster than my G1 under the same conditions.

A lot of people complaining are people trying to get locks indoors, or comparing the phone to another GPS device that has been used recently (and hence has up to date almanac information), which is unfair.

[ultra spikey]

The GPS on my Samsung Galaxy S is awesome. It took about 40 seconds to get a lock the very first time out of the box, and now consistently gets a lock in under 5 seconds. Once I let it download the almanac information from the satellites for 15 minutes this lock time has improved further. It's noticeably faster than my G1 under the same conditions.

A lot of people complaining are people trying to get locks indoors, or comparing the phone to another GPS device that has been used recently (and hence has up to date almanac information), which is unfair.

You may get an initial lock, but does it maintain it?? Have you tried Google Maps Navigation? It may find your location at first, but during the trip, your location will jump around everywhere.

The evidence is there. There are reports all over the internet about the inaccurate GPS.

[extorian]

It maintained the lock for the 15 minutes I left it running, but I was stationary. I'll try it with short trip shortly and let you know.

[justc215]

I would just like to be able to something as simple as add ringtones to my contacts

[extorian]

I use Voice Called ID to speak the name of the caller when they call.

[extorian]

You may get an initial lock, but does it maintain it?? Have you tried Google Maps Navigation? It may find your location at first, but during the trip, your location will jump around everywhere.

The evidence is there. There are reports all over the internet about the inaccurate GPS.

OK, I did some tests using GPS Status and a moving test using My Tracks to and from the gym.

Inside, the G1 performed much better than the SGS. Both phones had the same signal strengths from the satellites it could see (according to GPS Status), but the G1 was using 7 out of 8 of them and the SGS was using anywhere between 0 and 5 the whole time I watched. The SGS was frequently losing its lock, whereas the G1's lock remained solid.

Using My Tracks, I had my G1 and SGS side by side in my car, and recorded a track on the way to the gym and back.

Viewing all 4 tracks in Google Earth, I can see that the G1 performed ever so slightly better. The G1 was flawless, whereas the SGS had two "glitches". The first was shortly after setting off, the track on the SGS misses off the first mile (2 minutes worth) of data. It lost its lock as soon as I closed the door of my car, and didn't get it back again for a couple of minutes. After that the track was flawless apart from one difficult place where there are some very tall buildings on both sides of the road for about 100 metres or so. The G1 was a little off (about 10m / 30 feet), but the SGS was about 3x as much off in the same location.

On the return journey, both phones performed flawlessly. This may support my theory that the almanac data is a factor. On the other hand, it may just be that there was better GPS coverage by the time I left the gym.

In summary, the SGS GPS is does not appear to be as good at using weak GPS signals as the G1, but if it has strong signals it appears to work fine. I imagine this can be improved by a firmware update as the hardware appears to be working OK.

[thefinn]

I would just like to be able to something as simple as add ringtones to my contacts

Ringdroid app from Market.