On Thursday I went to my local T-Mobile store and picked up the new Samsung Galaxy S to replace my damaged Google Nexus One. I am usually reluctant to early adopt any new gadget, preferring to wait at least a few weeks to read about any issues or complaints other users might have. Being eager to replace my Nexus One with an Android-powered device that wouldn’t suffer obsolescence in six months, I went ahead and took the plunge.
I was thrilled with the brillant Active-matrix OLED (AMOLED) display. The T-Mobile version of this handheld is called the Vibrant and the image quality is just that. The device included a copy of the movie Avatar and it looks amazing. I also liked the thinness and light weight of the device. The device is also fast.
Given all my excitement, I soon found myself crashing into a brick wall of disappointment. The GPS utterly sucked. It took seemingly forever to get a GPS lock if I was lucky. Often I couldn’t get a lock at all, inside or outside. My buyer’s remorse intensified. This was a big deal. Using my previous two phones, the HTC Dream and the Nexus One, I found GPS to have become indispensable, especially when navigating in the car or geeking out with augmented reality apps, not to mention foursquare or Google Sky Maps.
Frustrated, I started Googling to see if this specific unit was just a dud off the factory line or if other users were experiencing the same thing. Sure enough, others were complaining and I came to regret my early adoption. I stumbled across across rumors that Samsung was preparing to release a firmware fix for the issue. This gave me the hope that the hardware itself was fine. I can deal with a fixable software problem.
It turns out it is just software that can be corrected with a small firmware change anybody could do themselves. I found this fix on XDA Developers forum. So far it seems to have done the trick.
- Turn Flight Mode on
- Dial *#*#1472365#*#* which brings up the firmware menu ***UPDATE*** The sneaky bastards at Samsung changed this. Now use *#3214789650# Hey Samsung, you do know that if you change this again, we’ll figure it out. Why bother?
- Under Application Settings change Operation Mode to MS Based
- Under SUPL/CP Settings change the Server & Port to supl.google.com (no “www”) and 7276 respectively
- Reboot
- Turn Flight Mode off
Ahh! My buyers remorse has vanished and I love this phone again.
In case you need to restore the default settings, they are:
Operation Mode: Standalone
Server: www.spirent-lcs.com
Port: 7275
I hope this works for you.
Cross posted at JamesReyes.com.
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