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Been using the iphone app for the past six months and I am happy with what it does. Trouble is that the iphone I am using has weak GPS reception at best and I need to upgrade but not wanting to replace what I already have I am looking to get an Android platform device. Just wondering what experience people on here have had with various 'Droid' devices or 'Smart phones' ?

 

I don't want to pay the Earth for a second phone and I will probably be buying it whilst in the UK next month so all relevant comments are welcome. It does however have to be a reasonable contestant to the iphone as I will most likely ditch this when I have a suitable replacement.

 

Thanks in advance

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Been using the iphone app for the past six months and I am happy with what it does. Trouble is that the iphone I am using has weak GPS reception at best and I need to upgrade but not wanting to replace what I already have I am looking to get an Android platform device. Just wondering what experience people on here have had with various 'Droid' devices or 'Smart phones' ?

 

I don't want to pay the Earth for a second phone and I will probably be buying it whilst in the UK next month so all relevant comments are welcome. It does however have to be a reasonable contestant to the iphone as I will most likely ditch this when I have a suitable replacement.

 

Thanks in advance

 

I also have the iphone but i bought the htc wildfire and have just downloaded the Groundspeak app to it along with locus pro maps and i find it 100% better than the iphone.

the android app is new so its getting better with every update,i bought the phone from tesco for £130 which is a good price.#

hope this helps and good luck with it all.

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Thanks, that sounds like a nice price to me. I will look into this further. Did you have to pay extra for the maps? How much? I don't mind buying the app again for the new platform as I reckon it is well worth the eight or so quid.

 

How accurate do you find the GPS for locating the caches? So many questions but your answers are much appreciated. Thanks.

 

S

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The maps were around £1.80, the app is £6.19 I got a friend to import pocket queries to maps (scuba_2) he's well up on this kinda thing,I can now put my phone into airplane mode,leave the gps on,find the cache using the map and radar (that comes with the maps once caches downloaded I think.yet again it's down to scuba_2) then go onto Groundspeak,put in my log and save it until I get home,on with my wifi and send logs.

Yet again it's all thanks to scuba_2 you could look him up and ask for assistance,he's very helpful.

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droid x with it's large screen rocks.. no real keyboard though.. but i got used to that.

 

getting better accuracy than my nuvi.. if the numbers are real.. there are even a couple of apps for averaging coords if you need good numbers to place a cache.

 

android is rockin...

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In addition to getting an Android device with as good a GPS receiver as possible, I recommend testing the display in full sun before buying one. It's one thing if you need to hold the phone in your own shadow to read the screen. It's another if you need to go inside to read the screen.

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I have never found the smartphone to be fast enough, accurate enough, reliable enough to a regular GPSr with paperless capability to use as a sole geocaching tool. And it is totally useless when there is no reception. [Do you want to find caches or not??]

Much of this is debatable, and the last part is completely untrue.

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I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the GPS and Technology forum.

 

I did wonder if I was posting in the right place. Thanks.

 

Thanks folks for the replies. I won't be buying the phone to use as a phone, silly as that may sound. I have an old iphone which I use in permanent airplane mode to take pictures and run the geocaching app. I simply want to try out the Google alternative as the reviews are looking good. Just need to know which phones work best with the Android app and which have best GPS reception. Cheers

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A better GPS reception can be had by using a bluetooth GPS and connecting it to your phone. They are real cheap (£15) but I'm not sure how well they would work with an iphone. I've only used them on android phones which are far more open than apple.....

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One thing I can tell you for sure - Avoid anything that is based on a Qualcomm chipset.

 

Qualcomm's gpsOne is highly rudimentary - it is almost unable to function without working SUPL. With SUPL and ephemeride preloads (XTRA), it appears decent to the end-user - but it's such a poor implementation that to match a standalone GPS unit from 2002 it needs massive amounts of network assistance.

 

As I understand it, whatever GPS implementation is used by the Acer Iconia A500 is also similarly highly dependent on SUPL to function well, other Tegra 2 based devices may be just as bad.

 

Probably most other phones are similarly bad in order to maintain cost competitiveness.

 

A-GPS is probably one of the greatest marketing successes in the mobile industry - it makes the user think they have a network-assisted GPS that's going to be vastly superior to non-assisted GPS. The truth is that the GPS receiver that is being assisted is so poor that the assistance only permits it to match the performance of modern standalone chipsets at best.

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A better GPS reception can be had by using a bluetooth GPS and connecting it to your phone. They are real cheap (£15) but I'm not sure how well they would work with an iphone. I've only used them on android phones which are far more open than apple.....

 

I have an Android phone and want to improve GPS reception. What bluetooth GPS' would you recommend?

 

Thanks

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I know you're asking about Android, but I'll throw this out there for you to ponder anyway... I've been QUITE impressed with the couple of Windows Phones that I've played with, and now own. You'd be doing yourself a disservice if you don't at least look at them before buying an Android or iPhone. I'm hooked on mine.

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I used a Motorola Atrix 4G with version 2.2 on it today with the new Groundspeak app. I was very impressed with it, took me right to all four caches. One I swear was within one foot of the cache! I take back all the bad things I said about the Groundspeak app. I like it. I still use my oregon 450 as my main cacher but in a pinch I will use the phone. It does work, and it works well.

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