I have owned over 10 different Garmin Automotive GPSs since 2000.

When I got my Nokia N810, I was a little disappointed with the amount of time the internal GPS took to determine its location.

However, today I took the GPS with me in the car.

I was surprised to find that the did not have to be mounted near the windshield to continue knowing its location.

GPS remained locked on satellites when N810 was placed on passenger seat.

GPS remained locked on satellites when N810 placed antenna side down in my
shirt pocket while sitting in driver's seat.

GPS remained locked on satellites when placed in Nokia case with GPS antenna was placed next to the fully covered case corner and then placed upside down in my shirt pocket.

I walked into 2 stores and the N810 was able to maintain its location even though
1 - I was in a building
2 - N810 was in its case with the antenna covered.
3 - N810 was in my front pants pocket.

When I got home, I compared my N810 GPS to my Garmin 10X GPS.

The 10X uses the SiRFstar III chipset. This GPS chipset is typically considered the best chipset for automotive GPSs. It has fast satellite acquisition time and excellent ability to maintain satellite lock.

I get very bad GPS signal reception in my building. I have never been able to get any GPS to find its location in my house unless it was within 4 foot of one specific window and it had a SiRFstar III chipset.

I have tested about 5 Garmin and other brands of GPSs without the SiRFstar III chipset and they could never fix on a location under these conditions.

But this new Nokia N810 can get a fix. While it sometimes takes longer to do this than my Garmin 10X, once it gets a fix it stays connected and my even be better at keeping a signal when I move it further away from the window.

So, to me this is great news, the N810 GPS is excellent at knowing where it is located even under tough conditions, it just takes some extra time to startup.

Its good to hear that the GPS performs well once locked. I wonder if it is doing a cold boot everytime and doesn't try to hot-start from last known coordinates? I consider time to first fix an important aspect of a GPS system, as I just want to jump in my car and go and not have to wait several minutes until I can start driving. My N95's GPS is atrociously bad and I was fearing the worst wrt the n810. It is good to hear that it is at least good at some things. I will be giving mine a lot of fairly rigorous testing when I get my n810 tomorrow. I want to use it for Geocaching, as well as directions.

AFAIK the chip into the N810 is a SiRF star III one.
I watched once a youtube (probably) video of someone interviewing a Nokia representative at a Nokia event and she was asked about the GPS chip inside the N810.
She confirmed it was a SiRF star III.

May be the N810 simply has a better antenna or a better location for it.

Good news!

I've noticed that once the N810 has a lock it's very good at keeping it. I just wish the initial lock time wasn't so long.

Thanks for the positive news, ajax.

If the chip is indeed SirfStar III - crossing fingers - I hope Nokia can improve the acquisition with firmware / software.

I've seen the SIRF III first hand lock on in <10 seconds at the other side of the US; so the Nokia should be able to keep it <30, I would think as a multifunction device that would be acceptable.

Hi,

what do you mean by saying:

remained locked on satellites

was able to maintain its location

But this new Nokia N810 can get a fix.
__________________________________

But what counts is fix update only.
You can set delay loop and have the same indoor fix readout as in outdoor.
The same way you can trick with locking on satellites.
But just move indoor and record track and verify it against real indoor space data to see if delay loop has been incorporated.

Darius

I seem to recall that the sirfstar III GPS can be put in at least 2 different modes. One works in buildings, but takes a long time to acquire and has some problem with displaying correct speed, etc... The other does not work in buildings.

Hmm, could there be a way to switch modes?

WOW... your right...

I just did a cold boot after installing OS version 1.2007.42.19...

and the GPS acquired cold.. sitting on my kitchen table INSIDE MY HOUSE!!

cold boot.. to locked on with a fix.. sitting inside my house!!!!...

now if it could only lock up in less than 10 minutes OUTSIDE

Just to keep this thread current - the chipset is a TI GPS5300.
Which seemingly is far from being the best thing available...