Nokia N900

[Benjamin Scott]

On Wed, May 12, 2010 at 2:06 PM, David Rysdam <david at rysdam.org> wrote:
> I will note, though, that when I first unpacked my actual GPS it
> acquired a signal in just a couple of minutes *from inside the house* ...

  It's certainly the case that quality of GPS chips and receivers
varies.  Better devices are likely to be bigger and use more power, so
a dedicated device (I assume that's what you mean by "actual GPS") may
have more resources available for that.  Combo devices usually have to
make compromises ("does everything, but nothing well").

  I also suspect some GPS implementations use more sophisticated
techniques than others.  It seems likely that given more RAM, faster
CPU, and/or smarter software, an implementation should be able to make
estimates to accelerate the "getting a fix" phase.  Something akin to
"well, I know I was here when I turned on last time, so let's assume
I'm still in that vicinity and see if the data I'm getting makes
sense".  Or maybe not; I don't know much about how GPS works, beyond
the fact that it uses timing differences between signals received from
multiple satellites.

-- Ben