[Touch Diamond, MDA Compact IV ROM Development] DFTrance:
Well,

I've been doing some tests with alphazero ROM. For fun I have tested NDrive, TT7 and iGo8. My Radio is 05.

First time fix:

First I ran Quick GPS. In all systems it took me around 5 - 10 mins to get a first time fix. I can only conclude that Quick GPS does nothing, absolutely nothing to speed up the first time fix. Don't know if the GPS software ignores it or what.

What did helped in my case to speedup the first time fix is the HTC GPS Tool (search the forum). It tests you GPS receiver and search for sattelites.

Subsequent Times

The more often you use the GPS system the quicker is the start up fix. . Can go from 5 secs to a minute (usually you get a fix in 30 secs). This was the case on all the gps software tested. If you don't use GPS, say for a week or more, then getting the fix can take as much as a first time.

This is common over all GPS System, so I don't see it as a bug of HTC Diamond.

Lag while driving

None on all systems in test. After getting the fix, and start driving the pointer moves as smooth as any other mainstream cheap systems (TT, etc etc). I must say that my Car GPS System (Toyota Avensys with Toyota GPS) does a smoother job updating the 7" screen embeded in the cockpit, but then again this is not a mainstream off the shelve GPS as it cost me 4 times the price of an HTC Diamond).

All in all it does what I expect it to do fast enough.

While walking / Pedestrian

iGo8 has a pedestrian mode. It simply does not work very well with HTC Diamond (have not tested it in other GPS systems). It does Lag and a lot. I'm more inclined to think that it is really a software problem.

As a side note automatic route in iGo8 planning compared with TT7 and NDrive sucks, but maybe I need to tweek it further but it does seam to make some nonesense plans.

All tests where done on battery fully charged!!!!!

Stability

GPL signal fluctuates between high and poor in a distance of 50 meters with no visible reason. At least that is what iGo8 reports. Don't know if it is a software problem of iGo8 or something todo with HTC Diamon hardware (antenna, CPU speed or what). Meanwhile, although I could get a lock over 8 sattellites (again reported by iGo8), it seams that it looses the lock as sometimes it goes down to 3 (going up and down). I don't know if this is a problem of iGo8 only or if it spans across TT7 and NDrive. But the latter as far as I saw seamed more stable.

Anyway, this is not so much a problem when driving, but I bet this is why the Pedestrian mode does not work properly.

Concluding

So no LAG while driving in all systems!!!! Just use it often as the software seam to learn. Actually it does not learn, it caches data!!!

But this does not mean that it is without problems. For instance the time it takes to make a first time fix (right after the software is installed, or after a hard reset) is somewhat erratic!!!! It once took me half an hour! If you have problem use HTC GPS Tool to get a fix the first time and then use your favorite GPS software. Also as for pedestrian tracking, the GPS systems to be higly innacurate in iGo8 and Lag.

HTC seams to need some work with the stability of the receiver in terms of interpreting signal strength. After the first time fix, subsequent runs are smooth provided that they are frequent enough so that the cache does not expire.

All in all, back to NDrive as this was just a test!

Stay cool,

Trance