I'm guessing you're referring to the discounted Navicore that can be found on ebay or Expansys on occasion. Unfortunately all I've found in that realm are the Europe maps. I've yet to find a discounted navigation kit or Navicore for the USA. Please direct me if you know of something else - and I don't care for the pseudo-crack that involves resetting the trial period.

I would say that the Wayfinder prices would be OK if this was a few years ago, but feel that they need to stay in touch with the existing market.

I know this was asked a while ago but here goes:

You start up A-GPS after your initial install. It starts up with a map of the world and you click your location on the screen, or as close as you can get to it. This tells the software an approximate location and uses that to download GPS almanac and ephemeris data to decrease the lock time from the internal GPS. Part of this data is which satellites are visible to you given your location.

You only need to run A-GPS once to set your location. Whenever an app starts that utilizes the GPS it will automaticially start the A-GPS service to help lock times. The only time you need to rerun the A-GPS program is if you've moved your location more than ~150 miles from your last lock position.

I've taken a renewed interest in the tablet GPS capabilities since my Nokia Maps 6 month trial expired. With the new A-GPS 0.12 beta that's available I have been getting surprising lock times, even driving down the highway at 80-90mph. As mentioned before, the large screen really makes it nice. Nokia Maps works great on my N95-4 and E71 and the lock times are still quicker on my phones than the tablet and the sensitivity is so much better on my phones than on the tablet as well. It's the screen that makes it so nice on the tablet. I'd love to see Nokia port Nokia Maps to the tablet (current or next gen) as it works well.

With the improved lock times I'm seeing I'd say I'm somewhat satisfied though I need to spend more time with it and perhaps hack on the 7-day trial again to see if Wayfinder is something I'd like to invest in. A 3-year license is fairly reasonable considering what others charge for service and/or map updates.

im happy...i read the satellite lock wasnt speedy. im in cancun on vacation, so i downloaded the mexico maps for the maps app. i busted it out and after 5-8 mins i got a lock. i was in the open of course. but worked well enough to show me what street i was on.

You are right. I don't know about the US license. But you can search around on the Buy & Sell forum here, or eBay as well. You have to hunt; not merely search. Save the eBay search terms. Navicore 2007 was the product I bought. But, for Europe indeed.

(I bought mine for 20 GBP on the Buy & Sell forum here.)

Great, but... what did you do during those 5-8 minutes? In your car picking your nose? Or..?

Imagine it'd take you ~1 minute like with all other proper GPS devices...

just to verify because I'm having a less than optimal clear brain thinking day; does A-Gps initially rely on wi-fi to pull in the sat tracking data if you are say a long way from your location when starting up cold. In other words if wi-fi is off and I get off the plane in another location around the world and I start A-Gps to update my location, does wi-fi come into play at all with A-GPS or is the software running independently of going online to get satellite locations, because I could have sworn I get faster sat fixes with wi-fi on when I switch A-GPS to another location on the map.

This has been always a bit of mystery to me. It says it prefers my telephone connection, but my telephone service wants to provide a proxy, and rumor has it that A-GPS doesn't like proxies. On a wifi link, A-GPS looks fat dumb and happy telling me that the "Cache is invalid". Today I got a "Cache is valid". Guess I'll throw a party, since that's the first I've ever seen it.

I think the theory is is that when you get to your vacation location, you start up A-GPS (praying like hell you don't need a proxy), then pretend it downloads ephemeral ephemeris information (aka "give the GPS a clue") when you tap on some general location in your current place on the planet. Then you spend the rest of your vacation merrily looking at where you are.

The reality, from my perspective, is that you tap on A-GPS, wondering what the hell it is doing, and pretending that what you're doing isn't pointless. Then you speed the next 2 weeks of your vacation wondering if you'll ever get a lock. Info happily tells you "Cache is invalid", and this can continue for weeks.

A-GPS is supposed to give the underpowered GPS chip a clue as to "look over there for satellites". Since it gives no feedback, you'll never really know.

AGPS should work with tethering as well. You can set that part up in AGPS GUI application. The cache is (in)valid informative feature is new in the latest AGPS beta

AGPS relies on a data connection to pull down the ephemeris data, wifi will work as well as a cellular connection. Actually when I pull up the AGPS app it only allows me to use my tethered cellular connection and doesn't give the WiFi AP as an option. Either way a data connection is necessary.

It won't ask to use WiFi. It just uses that. Because there are no expensive data fees on WiFi AP usage whereas this is common on cellular connection (ie. international roaming).