Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Really Cheap Mobile Phone Difficult Looking for GPS Signals

Among users of gadgets, circulating the assumption that cheap smartphones usually have a GPS performance that is not as good as expensive devices, especially if using MediaTek processor.

Some of MediaTek's chipped chip models were reportedly problematic with GPS signal reception, either difficulty locking position, unstable, or inaccurate. But that was a few years ago.

How about the modern MediaTek chip, is it still constrained by similar problems? To find the answer, KompasTekno bring Oppo F3 in the production of Web Series Mudik Smart 2017.

Oppo F3 uses a 1.5 GHz MediaTek MT6750T chip octa-core with Assisted GPS (A-GPS) support. This phone belongs to the middle class category with a tag of Rp 4.4 million in the Indonesian market.

KompasTekno uses Oppo F3 for navigation purposes along the journey from Jakarta to Tegal, Semarang, and finally Yogyakarta.

Comparison

Oppo F3 is not alone. A number of other phones are brought along as a comparison, the Xiaomi Redmi 4x (Snapdragon 435) represents an entry level device, Galaxy A5 2017 (Exynos 7880) which is also from the middle class, and Galaxy S8 (Exynos 8895) as a representative of high-end devices.

In addition to the Google Maps software with offline maps that have been downloaded earlier so as not to depend on mobile signals, KompasTekno also run GPS Test applications to observe the reception of GPS signals from each device.

GPS Test is able to detect how many satellites are "visible" in the sky by the device following the signal reception power of each satellite. Speed ​​of position when first accessing GPS (first fix) is also measured, as well as the accuracy of the compass and speed measurement.

It should be added that the performance of GPS signal reception depends on many factors. In terms of device hardware, in addition to chipsets, antenna quality also affects.

The weather and surrounding environment can also have an effect, especially if there are many high objects (eg buildings, hills, or trees) that have the potential to block satellite signals.

All four phones are set in high-accuracy location mode that utilizes GPS signals, as well as mobile and Wi-Fi to get the highest mapping performance.

KompasTekno has previously explained about GPS technology in a short article. More can be listened to via the following link.

Comparable

From experience all the way, KompasTekno did not experience the problem of GPS signal reception with Oppo F3. The GPS performance of this device is comparatively proportional to the three other phones in testing.

Similarly Xiaomi Redmi 4x which is the cheapest mobile phone was able to work with almost as good as the most expensive device in the affairs of GPS signal reception.

The four devices have no trouble locking the position with high accuracy even though the vehicle through the Alas Roban path flanked by teak forests on the right and left and minimal mobile signal. Most of the time, vehicles travel in relatively open urban environments because there are rarely tall buildings in towns and toll roads.

In both types of environments, the four good Galaxy S8, Redmi Note 4x, Galaxy A5, and Oppo F3 both show similar and comparable performance, both in terms of locking position, accuracy of the compass (direction / bearing) and speed measurement of vehicle .

GPS Test reports the average first-time locking time of all four phones under 5 seconds. Under ideal conditions on toll roads with sufficient cellular signal coverage, the first fix time is even fairly instant with the help of A-GPS.
The only scenario that shows the difference in the performance of the four phones is when under the roof or in the room. In this situation, the Galaxy S8 almost always managed to lock the position while the other three phones are always difficult and sometimes fail to get location data.

However, the performance of GPS when indoor is not too influential with the navigation process in general which is almost always done outdoors, ie on the streets.

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