Galaxy S2

[+mjlambert]

In the past I have used a Samsung Galaxy S3 from Sprint and it has worked great. But recently, I wanted to get away from the contract phones so I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S2 from Virgin Mobile and so far it just hasn't been good for finding caches. When I compare it to my Oregon 450 or my wife's S4 it usually puts me 40-60 meters away from the cache. I've tried to tweak some of the settings on the phone but nothing seems to help get the accuracy better. It doesn't have problems locking onto GPS and the accuracy says about 2 meters, but it just puts me in the wrong spot. Has anyone else had these problems?

[+Socal ZukiCachers]

In the past I have used a Samsung Galaxy S3 from Sprint and it has worked great. But recently, I wanted to get away from the contract phones so I purchased a Samsung Galaxy S2 from Virgin Mobile and so far it just hasn't been good for finding caches. When I compare it to my Oregon 450 or my wife's S4 it usually puts me 40-60 meters away from the cache. I've tried to tweak some of the settings on the phone but nothing seems to help get the accuracy better. It doesn't have problems locking onto GPS and the accuracy says about 2 meters, but it just puts me in the wrong spot. Has anyone else had these problems?

 

I cannot give you an absolute answer; however, I can tell you - as an Android programmer - that the GPS functions within the phone has several settings that can normally be manipulated by the programmer. These setting include power level, sampling times and whether or not the GPX function actually use the GPS chip and the satellites or if the phone will just triangulated using the cell towers. It is possible that Virgin, being that it is not a contract phone, has limited these settings in their firmware. You might ask, why would they do that, the first reason to do that is that it dramatically increases battery life on the phone when the phone. Verizon is notorious for doing things like this; though the GPS in my Verizon S3 (Contract) works great....

 

David

Magellan Insider

[+mjlambert]

I was afraid of that. I guess all I can do is mess around with the settings again and see if anything helps and then take a look at getting a contract phone again. Thank you for the information.

[+Spencer_320]

I have the Galaxy S2 with a prepaid carrier, Boost Mobile. Accuracy on my device is pretty good. Better usually than my handheld GPS. I learned from a previous phone the best app to get a good GPS signal is an app called GPS Status. If I'm having trouble locking down a signal, I turn this app on, let it do it's thing then run the Geocaching app. The phone's GPS will pick up quickly after that. Download the app (free) and play around with it.

[+Woodstramp]

I also have the G-S2 on Virgin Mobile. The GPS guts in this phone are like a non "H" Etrex. Easily loses signal in timber.

 

My previous VM phone was a LG Optimus V. Outstanding GPS in that thing. It often locked sats faster than my 60csx.