[Touch Pro CDMA] bfranker:
Hey guys,

Can you tell me if there is an "issue" with the GPS on the Alltel Touch Pro phones? These are fairly new phones and have only been out for a couple weeks so there may not be a lot of info available but it sure seems to me there are some issues here.

I'm on my 3rd phone. First phone was probably OK but since it was new and nobody in the area was familiar with it, everyone thought the speakerphone speaker was defective... turns out it just sucks but that's in a different thread. On the 2nd phone we noticed at the Alltel store the signal kept dropping out completely and then coming back. Also I dropped a call, looked at the phone and it showed no bars in a very good signal reception area. That coupled with I couldn't get the GPS to reliably work, Alltel swapped out the phone again for me thinking the GPS was defective. Well, third one might be worse!!!???

I have verified I have the 911 location settings turned ON.

I have run QuickGPS and downloaded the data.

On the 2nd phone after several days of trying it off and on and having zero success I decided to get the $9.99 monthly Alltel app. It did indicate a weak signal but eventually picked up my location. Hmm??? I then went into Google Maps and it too was seeing around 10 satellites. Why could I not get it to see any satellites for days then as soon as I paid for the monthly Alltel app it "kinda" worked??? I say "kinda" because after that being able to lock onto satellites even in an open field was very iffy. So, I took the Alltel GPS app off the phone and did a hard reset because I still couldn't consistently get any satellites. After the hard reset I tried again with Google Maps and nothing. I then downloaded GPS Test and it immediately found several satellites??? I then started up Google Maps and then it immediately started working too?!? During all this I installed TomTom Navigator 5 (own that so thought I'd try it) and it too was "iffy" if it would find any satellites but it did connect so long as I had the GPS Test program running in the background. I could live with that but even with the GPS Test program running in the background on the 2nd phone it wasn't at all consistent even outside in an open field. What I find odd though is that the GPS seems to "stick" and the GPS Test program was "unsticking" the locked up GPS... but not reliably.

Now for the 3rd phone. Get the 3rd phone this morning and immediately download Google Maps, turn on location settings, and do the Quick GPS. Do a soft reset and try out Google Maps in a parking lot. NOTHING again after over 10 minutes. CRAP! Downloaded GPS Test and now on this phone I'm only getting "GPS starting up" with one yellow bar. I can't even get GPS Test to work now but it finds the GPS and acts like it is trying to lock on to satellites. On both phones it was defaulting to 9600 baud. Seemed to not make a difference if I select 9600 or 4800... when it works it works and when it doesn't it doesn't.

This is very frustrating. It is not like the programs don't work because I've got them all to work but only sporadically. Is Alltel doing "something" to this phone and the GPS like "half assed" locking it out??? I don't know what else it could be. Could I have got two bad phones in a row? I've read were other Alltel users just download Google Maps and, bingo, works immediately for them.

Any ideas as to what I might be able to try would be greatly appreciated. I love some of the features on the phone but some of the basic items that should work (speakerphone, GPS) on an expensive phone like this don't work worth a darn :(

Thanks!!!