[Galaxy Note 4 Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] butternutty:
It depends... and Sammy has a spotty record when it comes to GPS

TL;DR?

Googled myself silly trying to find this out and failed. :confused: I don’t think there’s an easy answer to this until someone buys both variants of the Note 4 and tests them out. Samsung is famous for having a whole bunch of variants per product model, as will be the case for the Note 4, so it depends:

Which SoC you get (Exynos or Snapdragon, as was the case with the Note 3 too). They come with different GPS solutions deep down.

What was done with the GPS antenna, and how well various tweaks were done to phone and radio firmware, which can also be carrier dependent and make your ‘mileage vary’ for things like A-GPS – pun intended :silly:

From what I've read, the Exynos version of the Note 4 might have the most room for improvement (or regression) because it’s incorporating a newer generation GPS hardware chip, but the Snapdragon version already incorporates a tried and well tested GPS hardware module. (Maybe look for a review trying to comparing GPS accuacy on the S5 Snapdragon vs. S5 Exynos to suport or debunk this point)

General notes about smartphone GPS on Android

Before getting into what I deem a plausible explanation of why Samsung GPS solutions are hit and miss, a brief general note about my understanding of GPS smart phone operation. From what I've read, getting a GPS fix and keeping it, with reasonably accuracy has a whole host of complicating factors. Some of them are:

GPS hardware and software in phones is probably optimised for 1) low power consumption, 2) time-to-fix and 3) accuracy, where accuracy is the lowest priority. So it’s likely to disappoint, but a less accurate GPS is better than no GPS (device with no power left)…

Sounds like A-GPS can matter a whole lot. Is A-GPS actually working? This depends on 1) signal coverage, 2) reasonable data connection, and 3) phone’s firmware properly configured to use A-GPS. Some people claim flashing different radios (often related to different carries or regions) improved or degraded how reliable GPS was. So it’s possible the GPS hardware is okay, but the radio/mobile operators setup has borked A-GPS implementation. And maybe A-GPS would help not only getting that first fix fast, but also helps to quickly recovering from a lost satellite lock when in a jungle (concrete ones and natural ones, given tall buildings and trees mess with GPS signal).

Determining a location can also rely on complex algorithms with even more inputs. Speeding up finding a location uses A-GPS, mobile network signal and wifi-signal (with triangulation). But keeping a lock and 'smoothing' out your location can use extra inputs from accelerometers, etc to compensate for and compliment the inaccuracy GPS signal readings.

Substantiating the above claims

GPS could work well for some Note 4 variants and not as well for others? What GPS solution comes with which SoC? In summary:

For the Snapdragon SoC variants of late, Galaxy S5, Note 3 and Note 4 share the same GPS hardware chip component design within the Qualcomm 800 series SoCs, so there probably won’t be any GPS improvements coming from this SoC… If we’re lucky, maybe antenna placement or firmware improvements were done, but otherwise, we could be in for more of the same (as I detail later, Snapdragon SoC’s GPS should be decent).

For the Note 4 Exynos 5433 version, a discrete GPS module is provided by Broadcom. This was the case also for a Galaxy S5 Exynos variant? Could this one bring some improvements?

I believe the Qualcomm GPS hardware component in the SoC is unlikely to be a major cause for concern, and the differences will come from the phone vendor (Samsung) specific build and/or the carrier/network operator specific radio firmware tinkering and support of location services.

Based on my own interests and experience

I’m also super keen to see an answer to this, as I'd be interested in getting a Note 4, but not if it has the same woes with GPS as my Galaxy S2 has. The S2 has multiple posts complaining or offering various hacks to try improve the GPS. And before that, I read the S1 had a particularly poor GPS hardware. After the S2, I think the Note and S3 started officially supporting GLONASS, which in theory gives the newer models a larger set of satellites to grab a fix from. But hearing the Galaxy Note 3 also has some GPS problems makes me worry that GPS is a neglected topic for Samsung (assuming the Note 3 you complained about was a Snapdragon version)… Assuming it’s not Qualcomm, it’s either Samsung or the carrier/mobile operator’s radio firmware at fault.

If Samsung messes up the antenna placement (as I saw alluded to in a previous post), it may not matter that much which SoC/GPS solution is beneath it (Qualcomm gpsOne Gen 8B vs Broadcom BCM47531). Antenna location and interference can be a serious issue. For example, my old disastrous Nokia N97 had a defect where the GPS antenna wasn’t properly shielded from signal interference of nearby components on the PCB and I was tempted to throw the device out of my car most of the time I tried to use GPS!.

If your carrier writes dodge firmware or has crappy network support for A-GPS, it’s going to take long to get an initial lock. Here in South Africa, I’m pretty convinced my carrier/mobile network operator MTN, or ‘<empty>N’ as I like to re-brand them, could care less about how well my GPS works. Sometimes with MTN I’ve got a full 3G signal with ping latencies of more than 30 seconds and no hope A-GPS can even talk with the servers it needs to reach

…

More details about which Variant has What GPS pieces, etc?

For those who like the tech details and background, I did a fair bit of Google digging about the S4:

GPS is integrated into the Snapdragon 805 SoC, but it not integrated into Exynos 5433 chip.

Snapdragon 805 has iZat/gpsOne Gen 8B with GLONASS support (www<dot>wpcentra<dot>com/snapdragon-805-processor-at-CES).

For all previous Snapdragon 80x’s, the GPS chip hardware component design is the same Gen 8B. Snapdragon 800 and 801 were used Note 3 and S5 variants respectively.

Qualcomm are tried and tested? Given Qualcomm are 1) the market leaders for providing low cost integrated GPS chipset solutions, 2) probably have the same lineage of GPS components delivered in iPhones (via the LTE modem chipset apple gets from them) as well other Android vendors who used the Snapdragon SoCs with GPS solutions integrated. If there are any issues on the Qualcomm GPS module design, it’d be a very wide-spread problem… (www<dot>qualcomm<dot>com/products/izat claims 3 billion devices use iZat tech and www<dot>anandtech<dot>com/show/8004/htc-one-mini-2-review/10 shows this GPS played well in an HTC. QUALCOMM claims it gets as good as 2m accuracy)

Dedicated GPS for Exynos 5433? Broadcom BCM47531 (www<dot>techinsights<dot>com/teardown.com/samsung-note-4-galaxy-alpha).

Broadcom BCM47531 is the new kid on the block that claims to support more Satellite constellations, but millage will vary again, as I’m not sure those extra constellations are going to help yet given some of them are being developed or are region specific (www<dot>zdnet<dot>com/broadcom-announces-new-five-satellite-constellation-location-chip-7000024098). American GPS and Russian GLONASS are the only fully fledged online GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System) solutions to date and the Qualcomm chipset already supports them as well.

Recall reading Broadcom have 2nd place in market share behind Qualcomm.

My suspicions of why Samsung GPS is hit and miss (Samsung’s history is quite spotted)

With Samsung pushing so many other sensors and features, several of which seem gimmicky, I worry that core use cases like navigation with GPS accuracy isn't the best implemented and tested feature… Kudo’s to Samsung for innovating, but I wish they’d also push more for refinement of important features/sensors that need to work well.

Another important consideration is that fairly testing and comparing GPS accuracy is difficult and time consuming. Benchmarks for CPU and GPU are easy to perform and repeat and other comparisons, while a bit more effort, such as screen quality, photo/video quality, or audio, which can be done in a lab with measuring equipment, etc. But testing a GPS usually requires going outdoors and driving or running / cycling around in various scenarios and places, and comparing the GPS track/results to a very well-known path or the track of professional grade highly accurate GPS device.

Maybe Sammy is smart and knows GPS is not easy to test and compare like other smartphone features, so they don’t focus on it that much? Hence it’s hit and miss between models and variants?

Some sites have aimed to try measure and compare phone GPS accuracy, but nothing I’ve found has a big/accurate enough sample. E.g. gpserror.azurewebsites.net only has a handful and test methodology is questionable? Please share if you happen to find a better example for this, as I didn’t look all that hard to be honest.