iFly GPS Forum

Amazon delivered my new Huawei Mediapad M3 8.0 yesterday. Picked it up to give it a head to head against my Samsung Galaxy Tab S 8.4.

First the good news - the tabs are almost exactly the same size, but the Huawei has newer hardware, a nice bright screen, easy enough interface and possibly best of all, a working fingerprint reader. Loaded up iFly using a trial subscription (I've already maxed out my three devices) and gave it a test. The colors on the Huawei are good, but not quite a saturated as on the Samsung. Subtle changes in sectional shading are easier to make out on the Samsung, but that is likely a personal choice thing.

The GPS issue however has me worried - my three registered devices, (all running stock Android 6 and up) have no problem getting GPS lock and show a full strength GPS signal in iFly. The Huawei however shows only one bar of GPS signal strength and the "Weak GPS Signal" warning is displayed all the time.

My troubleshooting so far has been to try the Huawei outside (makes no difference) and to load up a couple of different GPS status apps. So far the Huawei will see many more satellites than either the Samsung or the Nexus 7, but will only "use" about 60% of them for location. Funny but the Huawei reports better accuracy by a few feet, although iFly reports the GPS signal as weak. I haven't flown with the Huawei yet, but a quick trip down the road had the Huawei reporting speed and direction in iFly although the weak GPS warning never left the screen.

As I write this, the two tabs (sitting side by side) GPS status:

Samsung - 12 Satellites in view, using 12

Huawei - 17 Satellites in view, using 9.

I've called Huawei USA support, but that wasn't very productive as they've never actually seen or worked with one before. Google searched for GPS issues, but the new tab is so new that either I've got a lemon or the problem just hasn't surfaced in the user base yet.

Any suggestions before I send this back to Amazon?

Just wondering how this turned out? My Motorola 8.2 inch tablet has been exceptional, but is maxed out at Android 4 and is starting to run into little issues running iFly so I'm shopping. There are a still a few new Tab S 8.4's out there and the M3 caught my eye as well, but I'm wondering if the GPS issues have settled down. Is the M3 the way to go, or should I find the best Tab S I can find?

Thanks,

Jim

Mark:You may remember that those of use with LG tablets and phones had a "No GPS lock" issue after LG had sent a software uograde.

IFLY quickly wrote a patch to correct this issue since we all knew LG most likely wouldn't put this on their priority list.

My LG G Pad works now, but I get an occasional "Weak GPS signal" indication. However, it still works well enough to show my position which is what matters to me. 

It is a bit bothersome to see the warning popping up though.

Using GPS Test I get 23 satellites with 17 in use with accuracy of 9 feet 

 as I sit here next to my computer in my house.