Help, my Samsung Galaxy Ace often loses the GPS signal during rides. Most frustrating when I have killed myself on a segment, to find that it has not been registered.

Are other phones better at maintaining GPS and does the network provider make any difference ?

Am I just better getting a Garmin instead – are they for reliable in maintaining location ?

Thanx

moto g is good, cheap, good GPS and so far impossible to kill.

Never had an issue with my iPhone 5s, and more accurate that my Garmin in terms of not losing signal.

Garmins are good but you’ll pay decent phone money for one that doesn’t require a cable/laptop to upload.

Phones are much of a muchness really once you get a half decent one. The main faff is battery life and ease of mounting on the bars, that’s where Garmins win.

I’ve got a OnePlus One, it’s a top spec phone for only £229-269 depending on storage. The battery is relatively huge and you can switch off a lot of stuff so that ride recording for 9 hours is possible. That’s with a BT heart rate monitor connected as well.

https://oneplus.net/uk/one

I use a galaxy 4 mini. Never had any problems with GPS signal. GPS is nothing to do with phone network. It’s best to carry the phone where it has a good view of the sky. Outside pocket of bumbag/rucksac etc. with the back of the phone facing outwards. If it’s in a front pocket and you’re leaning forwards you will block the signal with your body. Shorts pocket and mounted on handlebars can shake the device too much, I have had signal problems with it there. Trees and cliffs can affect the signal. It’s called ‘canyon’ effect!
When starting a Strava ride, I wait until I get a full set of green GPS bars before I press start. I usually leave the phone on the car dashboard to acquire a decent signal while I faff with my bike and gear and then it’s the last thing to be packed in my bag before setting off.

iphone6 rarely misses a beat although I use wahoo fitness app rather than the strava app.

Xperia z3 here. Much more accurate than my Garmin Edge 200! And the battery life is excellent – 6 hours ride with a lot of map checking and photo snapping (plus occasional text/phone call) and it didn’t drain half of the juice.

Xperia Z3 compact – had a couple of issues with the App and one with the phone which crashed and came back speaking Paraguayan Spanish to me.

Battery life very good though.

Don’t write it off just yet!

Phone needs a good view of the sky, needs to be in ouside pocket of bag.

Mine won’t work in bottom of bag or chest pocket etc (samsung S4 mini)

2nd what Deveron said.

Fresh reboot also helps ime.

GPS doesn’t need the phone network, but A-GPS does.

Motorola G (v2) for me. Happy with it.

Galaxy XCover 2. Fantastic GPS on it. Never once lost a signal, far better than mates Garmin. Will last all day with GPS running without needing charge. Bonus is it is fully waterproof and shockproof. Mind, I run OS maps on Alpine quest and save the routes as gpx files to upload to Starva at home on the PC. Find this 100% reliable. With my old HTC with the Starva App I often had problems of lost signal or failure to sync after a ride. Very frustrating as I swear I had a few good KOMs one night 🙂

GPS doesn’t need the phone network, but A-GPS does

A-GPS just speeds up time to first fix. once the GPS is fixed its unlikely to lose it unless you go through a really long tunnel…

Slight hijack … Any one used the Microsoft band? I see it now has strava integration.

I recently got myself a cheap LG L40 from Tesco-mobile to use as a “riding phone” rather than carrying my posh phone all the time. Superb value at £40, lightweight and pocket-friendly, and the GPS seems to work accurately with faster fix time than either of my other devices. Spare batteries are readily available, too, which appeals for my intended usage.

I’m currently using a moto-g (first gen) with Strava, works really well, GPS is very good and battery life, also nice and cheap (£130ish sim free) and able to take a few knocks. The current gen is very similar and still nicely priced.

If anyone has had a new screen/frame fitted to their phone and has bad GPS reception, you may find the ground connections to the frame are missing.

Mine was completely hopeless, new screen was missing the metallic pads that ground everything together. Used folded up sticky foil on the various ground points as per Google instructions and now better then it was new…gets a fix indoors now 🙂