android mobile brand (model or chipset) has got best GPS fix ie fastest and accurate

[19andy69]

Hi all,
Goog morning, could anyone of android mobile geeks , please suggest me which android mobile brand (model or chipset) has got best GPS fix ie fastest and accurate.
Thanks in advance

 

[Rukbat]

Most accurate isn't an issue - there's one algorithm for determining position with GPS and that's what all GPS receivers use. Accuracy depends on the number of satellites being received and the weather. (We're talking about billionths of a second of time it takes a radio signal to get from the satellite to your receiver. A cloud can slow that enough to throw the fix off by meters.)

As for starting time, cold starts take longer than warm starts, so it's more a matter of how you use it than of how long it takes to start. (The receiver has to get a full transmission, no static, no missing bits, from at least 5 satellites to get the initial fix, so tree cover, buildings, even electrical noise from surroundings, influence the start time a lot more than which phone you have.)

Typical warm lock time (the GPS was turned on in the same place it was last turned off) is anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds depending on conditions - even for the same phone. Cold start time - you turn it off in NY and turn it back on in Moscow a month later - can be minutes.

(I just tested my Note 3 for a warm start - 17 seconds. That's typical.)

 

[19andy69]

I would like to share my experience here ;my old nokia E52 takes just 10 sec to fix 5 satellites with A-gps even in indoors, without A-gps takes less than a minute to fix position ; where as my xperia t2 ultra dual take nearly 2 minutes to fix position with GPS and Network support. Thus the type of GPS chipset used has definite edge on fixing the position.

 

[STARGATE]

Hello there, welcome to the forums at Android Central!
I'm not very good at with that sort of stuff but Rukbat's explanation rings a bell to what I've seen before.
Having said that, I know my Galaxy S5 gets a GPS fix within 10 to 20 seconds on a cold start most of the time. However, there have been times that it almost took a minute.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! I'm going to move this to the General Help forum, since it's not exactly an Intro. To the OP, we'd love to hear a little bit about yourself in an actual introduction!

 

[aaaku]

May be this is an old post. But I had the same question. I don't think saying "more or less all SOCs are the same" is true though. I _have_ a garmin asus M10 (Windows mobile 6.5), it is outdated, but is has the best GPS I have ever seen. I think the secret is a special AGPS-like update from garmin that is valid for 7 days. I say it is agps-like, because, I think the agps data is garmin proprietary. My understanding is, a "standard" agps data update is valid just for a few hours.

My new phone is a lenovo with an MTK chip. The general feel is, MTK chips have bad gps. But, my phone with MTK chip locks better than my friend's phone with a snapdragon. But, my phone with MTK chip is still worse than my wife's zenfone with intel atom.

Probably gps performance depends on a lot of factors like, chipset, antenna, agps technology used etc.

You should know that SOCs have their own proprietary gps data fetch technologies. MTK uses something called EPO. Snapdragon uses xtra.dat. This is not the same as standard agps. But, I think google is somehow forcing SOC vendors to deprecate their proprietary agps-like technology and use standard agps only. The standard agps server that is configured on most android phones is the google agps server BTW (that way, google can keep tabs on you ).

 

[aaaku]

May be this is an old post. But I had the same question. I don't think saying "more or less all SOCs are the same" is true though. I _have_ a garmin asus M10 (Windows mobile 6.5), it is outdated, but is has the best GPS I have ever seen. I think the secret is a special AGPS-like update from garmin that is valid for 7 days. I say it is agps-like, because, I think the agps data is garmin proprietary. My understanding is, a "standard" agps data update is valid just for a few hours.

My current phone is a lenovo with an MTK chip. The general feel is, MTK chips have bad gps. But, my phone with MTK chip locks better than my friend's phone with a snapdragon. But, my phone with MTK chip is still worse than my wife's zenfone with intel atom.

Probably gps performance depends on a lot of factors like, chipset, antenna, agps technology used etc.

You should know that SOCs have their own proprietary gps data fetch technologies. MTK uses something called EPO. Snapdragon uses xtra.dat. This is not the same as standard agps. But, I think google is somehow forcing SOC vendors to deprecate their proprietary agps-like technology and use standard agps only. The standard agps server that is configured on most android phones is the google agps server BTW (that way, google can keep tabs on you ).