Thinkpads Forum

Hello

I just bought a X200 a few days ago with Ericsson UMTS WWAN card (AT&T or Verizon in different areas) installed. Got a SIM from my provider (not officially supported, EE EMT, but that's another matter).

WWAN works just fine, with rates up to 3Mbit/s with good reception. However GPS is way below normal.
For example, my Sony Ericsson X1i Xperia has much better reception. I'm currently writing this over WWAN, GPS tracking enabled. I'm in a stone building with pretty thick walls. X200 gets no signal at all while my X1i gets a wobbly fix with 4 satellites.

It's no better outside. I was driving around the other day in a car. X200 got 2-3 sattellites and no lock at all while X1i was getting perfect fix with 6 satellites. When i got out of town, X200 got a lock with 6 satellites (with bad signal), while X1i maxed out at 10 (hardware maximum) with almost perfect reception.

On X200 i'm using ThinkVantage GPS 2.11 with most recent Ericsson driver. Also checking signal with Regio CD-Atlas 4.0.4 (local map provider software in Estonia). OS is Windows 2008 Server 64bit. I've reinstaller both Ericsson driver and ThinkVantage GPS.

On X1i i'm checking signal with TomTom 7.

I work as system administrators and i know my way around technology but this has really left me puzzled. Reception should be the other way around, because i presume that X200 has way bigger-better antennae than a small X1i. It's no Sifr III, but pretty decent for such a small device.

X200 is 7458-85G with default configuration.

I've been testing GPS whenever i can for a few day's now.
In perfect conditions (cold weather, clear sky, empty field, on top af a pick-up truck), it still takes quite long to get a fix.
Also, ThinkVantage GPS can't be trusted for number of satellites. TV may show up to 8 after about 30 minutes of tracking, however Regio CD-Atlas show's up to 12 at times, but always more than TV. I haven't yet used any other application to decrypt NMEA.
Still, the signal is not stable. When driving through city, it still loses fix for seconds and number of satellites jumps up and down.

Indoors, still the same. Left it tracking under the windows when i went out for the evening. After coming back a few hours later, it was happily showing GPS time but otherwise nothing. Regio CD-Atlas showed, that it had never achieved lock. X1i got lock in less than 10 seconds from 4-5 satellites. X1i may have an advantage, because it uses QuickGPS to predownload ephemeris and almanac, but still.

Well, it seems to work, but it needs clear view of the sky and maby 10 minutes for a fix. It doesn't seen to store almanac nor ephemeris, since cold and warm lock take about the same.

Has anyone experienced the same, or should i get something swapped?

I felt the same way. My x200t never got a reliable GPS signal compare to my HTC Touch Pro. sign...

Ditto. Not sure if I posted it here or not but I get 4-6 satellites on a good day while other I get zero:(

I had a freeware 3rd party GPS on my phone that did better. I installed a similar app on my X200T and got great results. I think the GPS Enabler may not be the best but it works....sort of