GPS WAAAAAY over-estimating distances

[whatever]

I just acquired a shiny, new Droid Razr M.

One of my primary uses for my phone is to record running distances. However, this phone ridiculously overestimates the distances I am running - on the order of a three mile run becoming a five mile run. It makes me look incredibly fast (yeah, I just did a casual six-miler at a six minute/mile pace, no problem), which is sort of awesome, but I'd prefer accuracy.

When I look at the maps that are produced, the route is entirely accurate, so I can't figure out why the measured distance is so long.

I use HandyRunner to measure distances, which worked well on my old HTC, but I tried Run Keeper as well, and had the same problem, so I'm pretty sure it's not the software.

Initially I had all the GPS options turned on - standalone, Verizon and, er, the one that uses Wifi. I shut everything off except the standalone, which is what I used to use on my HTC, but it's still overestimating.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Spey]

Razr M being so light is most likely making you amazingly faster the you could have previously imagined :biggrin:

I will be interested to to hear what you come up with as I typically use GPS on phone for hiking & Mt.Biking with TopMaps software (still deciding on Android software for this - previously done with Windows software). The fact that you say the map routes produced are "entirely accurate" put the kabosh on my initial thoughts related to variable GPS accuracy and sensitivity (changes Daily/weekly - and effect should be to shorten a route not lengthen as you have posted).

Please let us know if you come up with answers/solutions.

 

[RicKaysen]

I'm standing in the middle of the Broadway theater district and my Facebook check in is suggesting places near Weehawken. At home, on the Upper West Side, it's suggesting places near Harlem. Other than that, the spot on the map is dead on. Silliness like that is probably Facebooks fault. Always found the GPS highly accurate. Are you sure the errors aren't coming from the app?

 

[Nyguy7]

You guys are lucky to have your gps working at all. Mine barely ever works.. In the time it takes for it to lock on and give me the route home, I often would almost of been home by then. lol

 

[Spey]

Nyguy7,
Sounds like you may have some nav/location services not running.
GPS works real good with my device (even with no other navigation services - so long as line of sight to the satelites).
Especially when combined with Trapster alerts software running (flagging of live speed traps, red light camers for driving unknown ares, etc., etc).

 

[RicKaysen]

This is the first phone I've owned that I leave GPS on all the time. With prior devices, I always turned it off to conserve battery and every time I wanted to use GPS, I had to turn it back on and, sometimes, the wait for it to lock on took forever. This time I took the advice of someone who posted that GPS hardly impacts battery life at all and it really hasn't been a problem. Whenever I walk outside and access some location based app, the GPS is right on the money.

 

[Nyguy7]

Nyguy7,
Sounds like you may have some nav/location services not running.
GPS works real good with my device (even with no other navigation services - so long as line of sight to the satelites).
Especially when combined with Trapster alerts software running (flagging of live speed traps, red light camers for driving unknown ares, etc., etc).

I seem to have all the boxes checked for that.. Any specific configuration that you would suggest? Thanks