Postscript to my post above.

I just took second unit I exchanged for today in Car.

It took about 4-5 minutes to lock onto Satellites and found my loction.
Placed unit on passenger seat and it was very accurate.

Maybe my first unit had an issue because satellite meter did not move past first bar for 10 minutes .

Based on what I just saw I can live with its performance.

Software is not great. Street names were not right for two roads near my home.

Uh.. Just change the signs... It'll fix it right up...

:-)

[DUCK]

Ok so based on the cold start/warm start deal, what have people been seeing? The hardware keyboard is great an all, but without the added toy value of GPS, $250 extra for a slideout keyboard ain't acceptable to me.

Well, I take back about what I said about the GPS not coming alive. It finally did after a second attempt and about 20mins. BUt one thing I do seem to see is the sensitivity is not very good. The minute I take it inside I lose all the sats. I have several garmins, they are all highly sensitive. I can get a fix while flying in a commercial airliner (using Maemo mapper too).

Also, there is no WAAS indicator, or option. Is there no WAAS in this unit (it will chew up power so probably good not to have it).

One more thing, there is no accuracy indicator. This would be nice to have.

I sooo wanted to get an N810, especially after holding one and dry-testing the keyboard in store. Dang it. All this slow GPS locking + routing tax + no apps ported to OS 2008 yet; made me order an expensive UMPC rather than what I thought to get for xmas, birthday, etc. And then some. Keeping my fingers crossed this is going to work out as an N810 and laptop replacement. It is in transit roughly 4 hours away from my house ... and I don't think I can wait till my birthday to open it!!!! If you know what I mean. But, I could and can, if I had to

I am seeing the same strangeness with the GPS on my N810. The fix times are usually (but not always) worse than my Holux GPSlim 236 (never better though).
My understanding (from this forum) is that the unit is sirfIII-based, same as the Holux. I am betting a software issue, not hardware - they are using a gpsd based off of 1.0 (-23) -- the current version is 2.34...

I'm also a bit disappointed in the provided mangement software (and its closed source nature) -- no documentation on how to use the gps wrt power on/power off. I would love to be able to have the GPS unit power on every half hour or so and stay up long enough to get a fix, then power off, even if I am not using any nav software at the time. I think gnuite solved this in MM, so I'll take a look at how he is powering the unit on/off.

Advice to those with fix problems, find it a nice spot near an equator-facing window in a single story house, start the location applet, prop it on its stand and walk away - check back after having a beer and it'll have a fix - it does seem to be faster the second time.

So there is a real variety or results in this post...

I'm about the pull the trigger here on two n810 (one for my biz partner and one for myself). While slow locking on the GPS isn't really a show stopper, I would like to hear that 2nd, 3rd, ... locks are relatively quick. 1-2min.. Is anyone having good results? A silent majority by chance? or is that wishfull thinking

While the 1st fix is indded time consuming, I didnt find the subsequnt fixes to be so long.

Today I restarted the GPS after having reflashed to the new N800 OS update for N810, and I restarted while driving slowly in my car - it took around 1 mins - the satelitites data screen showed up with at least 5 lock-ins - and I closed the screen and it went straight to the map.

I think you dont have to wait on the screen to close maybe...

While driving the routes and turns showped pretty acurate - just as I tuk a turn, it showd the turn itself . I have used a Magellan nefore and this was comparable to it in terms of map accuracy.

While driving, I tried to pan the map with the finger and then it showhow got stuck , without the map showing me progress ... so I closed and restarted the app - and it got back to the map screen pretty well.

So far so good for me.

I am getting better results now, not really sure what the difference is - it doesn't like moving (jet-lag bug) - had it in Palm Springs, CA over the weekend and it took a LONG while to get a fix there, couldn't get a fix in the airplane (aisle seat) and when I got back to SF, it took a bit for the first fix, but not too long. After not being used for a few days, took it out this morning and it got a fix within a minute or two. Several in/out of the car and fix has re-established very quickly.

I am still betting on a software problem - gpsd getting into some hung state or something.

Tracks fine for me once it has a fix - at 80 MPH, no problem.

If you want it to get a fix in an airplane you'll have to first get a fix before you go on board. These consumer GPS chipsets have big problems locking on if you're moving, even just driving slowly can prevent a lock. When it's locked on then you can start moving.