Samsung Captivate

[+kwcahart]

I am thinking about getting a Samsung Captivate, anyone using it for Geocaching?? Do you like it or dislike it for geocaching? Thanks. I will be using it with my Garmin 450T, mostely for a cell phone and email and finding geocaches on the fly when traveling.

Edited January 11, 2011 by kwhart

[+jopasm]

I am thinking about getting a Samsung Captivate, anyone using it for Geocaching?? Do you like it or dislike it for geocaching? Thanks. I will be using it with my Garmin 450T, mostely for a cell phone and email and finding geocaches on the fly when traveling.

 

I have one and I am NOT impressed. The GPS takes a long time to lock on, is very inaccurate once it does (we're talking 100' or more off on a clear day with no obstructions), and sometimes refuses to work period. Samsung seems to have a serious problem with their GPS implementation - the Blackjack II GPS was awful, the Captivate has been plagued with problems, and they pulled their GPS enabled camera off the market after a short time due to severe GPS shortcomings. Their customer service was not the worst I've ever dealt with, but wanted me to ship the phone back to them, be without for 2-3 weeks while they attempted to fix the problem, then ship it back (another 5 days). This was on a phone that was 34 days old (you only get a 30 day return/warranty, after that it has to be sent it to be fixed). ATT was even less help. I regret buying the Captivate and I will not be purchasing another Samsung product.

 

One of my co-workers has a Garmin phone (runs Android) and it works great. The HTC and Motorola phones seem to have a decent GPS implementation. I'd stay away from Samsung though.

[+splashy]

I own a Samsung Galaxy S and it is the best Gsp thing I ever saw, combined with free apps it's lightyears ahead of Garmin.

I never had any Gps issues and I'm really happy with it, combined with an Oregon is the best we can have on the moment.

[+kwcahart]

Did you know they have a fix for the Captivate GPS system? It is software settings mostly, and you can fix it by downloading the app from Samsung to fix it. just google "samsung captivate GPS" and it will bring the info right up for you. I thought that I had said that I was going to use this with a Garmin 450 GPS. I will use the Captivate mostly to access geocaching.com to find nearby caches when I am traveling. I do not intend to use it as my primary GPS, I will use a real GPS for that. Thanks for the input.

[+g_whiz]

@kwhart,

 

Were you able to resolve your Captivate's GPS issues? I finally did but I had to root my phone to do it. Rooting is not the big deal everyone makes it out to be, but some aren't comfortable with it. One day I did have to take my phone to the AT&T service center for an unrelated problem. I admitted to them up front that I had rooted the phone and they didn't care one bit. Anyway, none of the apps on the Market ever helped. I used a combination of two fixes and have had great results. First I applied KJLM's GPS fix, which you can find here.

 

http://www.darkyrom.com/community/index.php?threads/guide-gps-quickest-fix-solution.2022/

 

Then I applied PlumbBob's Fix. You can just search for that on XDA. KJLM's fix is probably on XDA, too.

 

Now I get a lock consistently within 5 seconds and have an accuracy of 10-15 feet.

 

Hope it helps. If you have questions let me know.

 

Regards,

g_whiz

[+kwcahart]

I bought a Motorola Atrix 4G instead, it works extremely well, I am very happy with it. Thanks for the help. The fix I was referring to was not on the market, it was from Samsung directly.