Samsung Fascinate Review: Verizon's Galaxy S Smartphone
by Brian Klug on October 5, 2010 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Samsung
- Galaxy S
- Fascinate
- Mobile
GPS on the Fascinate
I spent lots of time testing the Fascinate's GPS and unfortunately, performance was just as bad as I've heard it being on the other Galaxy S phones. It's really the entire line of device's achilles heel.
There are two real issues with the GPS - fix speed, and overall low SNR. I'll start with Fix speed.
I've seen the Fascinate get fast GPS fixes, and then 10 minutes later get extremely slow fixes. It's completely erratic, and there's no predictability to it. Right out of the box, I timed a whopping five minutes (even connected to WiFi) standing in my yard with a huge swath of visible sky.
Other times, the Fascinate gets GPS fixes quickly like any other modern smartphone - within seconds. At one point, I proclaimed to Anand that I was certain I had fixed the issue by disabling Verizon's location services - all my fixes that day took seconds. As we iChatted for the Apple 27" Cinema Display review, I tried to demonstrate my great success - and of course those fast fixes suddenly stopped. It seriously hasn't been fast since.
The other problem is fundamentally low SNR. Look at this shot, and guess which one the Fascinate is:
That's outside at night in a completely empty field with ideal sky visibility - no clouds, no rain, just cold air. Look at how many satellites the Fasciate has compared to an EVO 4G (right) and Nexus One (left).
Repeat the same thing in my office under a foot from a huge window:
This is the case indoors, outdoors, in the rain, daytime, nighttime, it doesn't matter - GPS is just poor on the Fascinate. The device is almost always at least 1 or more acquired satellites fewer, with slightly worse SNR being reported. It's small consolation that at least on Android we can have apps which read NMEA data so we can diagnose exactly what's going on.
Slow GPS fix times can probably be fixed with a software update. I've read differing reports that the Fascinate already has this fix applied - I can only hope the device I had didn't have it. Poor SNR and signal strength, however, is a problem no more fixable on the Fascinate and other Galaxy S phones than it is on the iPhone 4 - unless of course it's being reported incorrectly by the GPS receiver. I believe that GPS accuracy on the Fascinate isn't really as much of a concern when it takes minutes to get a GPS lock. Anything is better than nothing.
Until the GPS issues are fixed, using things like Google Navigation are downright frustrating. I've literally gone driving with the Fascinate, attempted to use Navigation, only to finally get a GPS lock after I'm 3/4ths of the way there and already looked it up on another smartphone-in-test I've got with me. It's frustrating and maddening to say the least.
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metafor - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
That seems to be a common misconception. Just think about it, the processor is somewhere around ~500mW doing an intensive task. Compare that to an RF radio chip that eats 2W or so while communicating to a 3G cell tower. Or the 2-3W display....The App Processor is a small percentage of overall power draw.
strikeback03 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Agreed, checking the power usage utility on Android it isn't uncommon to see the screen drawing the vast majority of the power. Which AMOLED has the potential to help with if there were a way to format websites to be more friendly to it (i.e. no white backgrounds).metafor - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
I'm personally banking on either Pixel Qi or Mirasol improving to the point where they can take over being the displays used. The power savings would warrant any apparent difference in image quality as long as it's "good enough".JimmiG - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
"Just think about it, the processor is somewhere around ~500mW doing an intensive task. Compare that to an RF radio chip that eats 2W or so while communicating to a 3G cell tower. Or the 2-3W display...."I guess you're right. I can play games and watch video on my HTC Desire without using much battery, but 3G browsing absolutely kills battery life. My daily routine involves heavy 3G web browsing on the 1-hour commute to school by train, then the phone spends most of the day in standby, then another hour of heavy usage on the way home in the afternoon. This is enough to run the battery down to ~10% by the time I get home, if I'm lucky enough to have it last the whole day.
But then, how does the iPhone4 manage nearly 7 hours of 3G browsing? Does it use a different radio chip, is it the network, or what?
metafor - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
RF chips don't really vary that much. I would take a guess that it's good software management. What you don't realize is that most of the time you're browsing, you're not actually loading data. You have a burst of data as the website loads, but then it stops.I've noticed on my iPhone that periods of inactivity -- while I'm reading a webpage -- would cause the signal bar to drop a bit. It would go back up once I clicked on a link.
I suspect the software is putting the RF chip in a low-power mode more aggressively than HTC equivalents.
A lot of people discount it but software throttling is the single-most effective way of reducing power consumption.
ssj4Gogeta - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
Is there any chance you'll do an I9000 review? It's the European/Asian version of the Galaxy S. It comes unlocked, doesn't have loads of crap preinstalled, and trades the LED flash for a front VGA cam. It also doesn't have a search button, but you can long-press the menu button to search.Also, please consider trying the voodoo lag fix in your future Galaxy S reviews.
http://project-voodoo.org/
It basically changes the system partition file system from RFS to EXT4, which makes the phone noticeably faster and smoother (no stalling while installing apps, no stuttering..)
8steve8 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
i personally have an international galaxy s with beta froyo rom (JPK), with lagfix, these are the numbers i get:Rightware BrowserMark:
35345 : my galaxy s 2.2
29018 : fascinate 2.1
sunspider:
07375.8ms : my galaxy s 2.2
15835.0ms : fascinate 2.1
linpack:
14.399 MFLOPS : my galaxy s 2.2
08.157 MFLOPS : fascinate 2.1
NeoCore Benchmark:
55.6FPS : my galaxy s 2.2
55.6FPS : fascinate 2.1
quadrant:
2000ish : my galaxy s 2.2 w/lagfix
0800ish with my galaxy s 2.1 stock
the phone ships with a terrible filesystem setup, causes severe lag over time... as shown in the quadrant score which does some IO stuff... this is fixable with root and a lagfix app...
and gps works about as good as my nexus one
(although in 2.1 builds of the firmware GPS was terrible)
this has been said by everyone, but the 4" SAMOLED displays on these things are sick... makes a nexus one display look really dated, and although props to the iphone for finally getting hi-res, 3.5" just seems comparably too small.
annoying it shipped so broken, but once dealt with, a beautiful device and over-all experience
ssj4Gogeta - Wednesday, October 6, 2010 - link
You don't even require root for voodoo lagfix. It comes in an update.zip and changes the filesystem to ext4.webmastir - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
fantastic review. this is why i love this site! great job & great info.Shadowmaster625 - Tuesday, October 5, 2010 - link
If you can forget that a $500+ piece of hardware is in your pocket, then you need to be... outsourced.