GPS Coverage

[xlr8bigmike]

hey, I have not had a chance to take my droid far away from the city yet, and i am curios to know how the coverage for gps works in comparison to 3g. Essentially shouldest all gps powered devices get the same amount of access to the signal depending on the individual hardware's antenna?

 

[takeshi]

GPS is GPS but some chipsets tend to do a better job of getting satellite lock than others. You will need data coverage for Google Maps.

 

[droidfannd]

I found out the need for data coverage the 'hard' way when I navigated myself to a location without any cellular coverage at all...but was unable to navigate my way back out via Google Maps on my DROID. Fortunately, I was able to recall the route back to Minot...and the DROID picked back up once data coverage was restored.

 

[deputc26]

GPS satellites cover the entire globe more or less equally, 4 satellites are required for a fix but typically 10 or more are useable from any location on the planet. Not all GPS receivers are created equal. the one in my Cessna outperforms the one in my droid by far (and costs more than 10x the price of the whole phone) GPS units are rated by the S/N they're capable of operating at, whether they support various features (WAAS etc.)and by how often they update the fix. It used to be they updated every 10 seconds but the droid updates every one second and the Cessna updates 10x per second.