I've read a lot of negative reviews regarding the inbuilt gps on the n810, and I have to say I agree with most of the criticism. However I found a solution that stabilizes and more importantly, adds a lot of reliability and consistancy to the gps. I installed the program carman, and it comes with it's own control manual entry. Clicking on that brings up the normal gps icon in the tray, as well as a new carman icon. However what I found that was so great about this icon, was it stabilizes the gps, as well as offers it's own gpsd server functionality. So that simplifies matters, a lot. The gpsd app that is in the apt-get tree had a very nifty icon with satalite positions and strength, however it was in no way compatable with the gps inbuilt into the control panel. However, many programs look for gpsd before the native gps service. Basically, you could be running one, but not the other. Needless to say, I spent many minutes standing outside with my unit in my hand waiting for a fix, which was never going to come. But with the carman icon, it offers up fast timely gps information to every single gps app I have going (all of them, right now). Today it was almost completely cloudless, a very beautiful day, and oftentimes inside buildings I was getting a good gps reading, and just stepping outside both gps apps I was using to track instantly got a great fix.
I went ahead and ordered a $45 bluetooth gps dongle that supposedly finds a fix very fast and is better than the inbuilt n810 chip, and I'm looking forward to testing and comparing. However, simply by installing carman I found the n810 built-in gps to be surprisingly functional.
Running 2 gps tracking programs with realtime map information and a last.fm radio player streaming from the dun bluetooth on my cellphone, I had 3 hours of fun laundry/walking around town. Guess if I want to do a 4-5 hour walk I'm going to have to figure out a way to conserve battery life. Can just use sansa for music, only 1 gps app, and like hardly ever use n810, but still having a load of fun with n810 it's a pretty nifty little thingy-bob. 3-4 hours battery life is pretty decent considering. Also you can underclock the cpu to save even more power. In any case, thought I'd do a little write up because I haven't read anywhere about anyone having installed carman and it fixing all their gps woes. To the contrary, mostly seen people discounting the internal gps. I will try to write up a little comparison once my helix bluetooth gps unit arrives.
I went ahead and ordered a $45 bluetooth gps dongle that supposedly finds a fix very fast and is better than the inbuilt n810 chip, and I'm looking forward to testing and comparing. However, simply by installing carman I found the n810 built-in gps to be surprisingly functional.
Running 2 gps tracking programs with realtime map information and a last.fm radio player streaming from the dun bluetooth on my cellphone, I had 3 hours of fun laundry/walking around town. Guess if I want to do a 4-5 hour walk I'm going to have to figure out a way to conserve battery life. Can just use sansa for music, only 1 gps app, and like hardly ever use n810, but still having a load of fun with n810 it's a pretty nifty little thingy-bob. 3-4 hours battery life is pretty decent considering. Also you can underclock the cpu to save even more power. In any case, thought I'd do a little write up because I haven't read anywhere about anyone having installed carman and it fixing all their gps woes. To the contrary, mostly seen people discounting the internal gps. I will try to write up a little comparison once my helix bluetooth gps unit arrives.
