GPS on N95

[bad ass]

Afternoon,
Right I've just got my self an N95.

I'm very happy with it so far, however I've never had sat nav before and would like to get it going.

Problem is the manual is pretty rubbish and I havn't a clue.

Can some-one give me a guide of how to get the sat nav working, I can get as far as finding my position. however when I put in for example a postcode anywhere apart from in norwich (which is where I live) it says it can't find it and therefore can't create a route. I started getting to pages on the phone that then started to ask me to pay subscriptions for 7 day or 1 year 3 years etc...

So all in all, I'm pretty confused. obviously I've come here seen as you guys are the experts, if you could take the time to help me out I'd be most apreciated as I'm starting to loose my rag with the damn thing!

EDIT!!!!!

I think I've managed to get the maps on. now I can plan a route (although to do that it wants to connect to the internet??)

Also how do I get it so that the phone sat nav will rotate with the heading I'm going in. i.e. north south east west, as which ever way i point the thing it just faces one way??

 

[justdoit]

the sat nav cannot tell which way you are facing, it will move only in the direction you travel and again only if you move a few metres as its not that accurate. Expensive in car units have gyroscopes in them to do what you want your N95 to do but a small handheld will only rely on gps signals

 

[bad ass]

ok i think I've got working now, is there anyway just out of interest that I can get a different voice for the navigation side of things. the woman would probably annoy me. if I could change it to another voice would be pretty cool. like kit from knight rider or something like that?

 

[Autopilot]

The Maps software on the N95 is absolutely terrible and the naviagtion is a joke. Don't spend any money on upgrading to the naviagtion version. I run TomTom on mine, but until tomtom release an update to use the internal GPS, i am using a bluetooth unit.

 

[Fantasticlees]

lol kitt from knight rider. why not hal from 2001:a space oddyssey, that would be quite cool

 

[bad ass]

ok well if i went to the tom tom one, (sorry if this sounds stupid) but what software would i need and is there a subscription too?

 

[Autopilot]

You would need to get hold of TomTom for symbian. The N95 is not officially supported, but it works perfectly (have have installed it on an N73 and N95) but they have not updated it yet for the internal GPS receiver in the N95 so you need to use a Bluetooth GPS. The N95's internal GPS is based on the old Sirf Star II for some reason, the Holux Bluetooth unit i have is a Sirf Star III and is much better. It's faster at locking on to the sats and is much more accurate.

Thge subscription is optional with TomTom, it give you live traffic updates etc but you dont really need it.

I have loads of voices on a CD for TomTom. The best two are Yoda and John Cleese

 

[bad ass]

ok cheers for that!

So obviously I'll need a gps module, I presume they're much of a muchness and seem to be cheap on ebay.

So which tom tom do i need and how much is it going to cost me? as long as its accurate, and i have somone telling me where I need to go left right in 200yrds etc I'll be a happy chappy!

 

[woody67]

What is the point of using an external reciever?

Why can't you set tomtom to use the 'other' gps reciever in the settings, and then direct it to the relevent com port - like it is done with other devices with a built in receiver?

 

[bad ass]

the reason, is from what I've been reading tomtom won't recognise the internal gps..

 

[Autopilot]

What is the point of using an external reciever?

Why can't you set tomtom to use the 'other' gps reciever in the settings, and then direct it to the relevent com port - like it is done with other devices with a built in receiver?

Because the other devices with built in GPS that work with TomTom are Windows Mobile devices. The N95 has the Symbian operating system.
When they made the Symbian version they left that option out. My best guess is that when they brought tomtom out for Symbian there were no Symbian devices with GPS built in so they did not bother spending the time coding it in. They would not have had any to test it on either. However, I'm they are working on it and it should be fairly simple to add.

 

[bad ass]

ok cheers for that!

So obviously I'll need a gps module, I presume they're much of a muchness and seem to be cheap on ebay.

So which tom tom do i need and how much is it going to cost me? as long as its accurate, and i have somone telling me where I need to go left right in 200yrds etc I'll be a happy chappy!

anyone?

 

[Tejstar]

The N95's internal GPS is based on the old Sirf Star II for some reason, the Holux Bluetooth unit i have is a Sirf Star III and is much better. It's faster at locking on to the sats and is much more accurate.

I want to buy an external GPS receiver for my N73, can you just tell me whether the Sirf Star III has a rechargeable battery and how long is battery life?

 

[Tejstar]

anyone?

Just search for TomTom Navigator 6 on google there are quite a few people selling it. I assume you need the version on the Mini SD.

 

[justdoit]

I want to buy an external GPS receiver for my N73, can you just tell me whether the Sirf Star III has a rechargeable battery and how long is battery life?

Sirf Star III is a chipset, various maufacturers sell GPS units based on it n yes they have a rechargeable battery. Ebay is a good place to find them at good prices.

 

[Tejstar]

I see. I saw one on mobilefun for around £40 - will check out ebay to see if they can be had for cheaper.

 

[Autopilot]

I want to buy an external GPS receiver for my N73, can you just tell me whether the Sirf Star III has a rechargeable battery and how long is battery life?

The Sirf Star III is a chipset. Many different manufacturers produce devices that contain the Sirf Star III, so it depends on what make/model you buy. But generally speaking, the vast majority of Bluetooth GPS units are rechargeable.

On of the best makes is Holux. You can't really go wrong with a Holux Sirf Star III unit.

As already stated, the N95 uses the older Sirf Star II chip. It uses less power than the newer Sirf star III and thus drains the battery less. The Sirf Star II is an ok chip, but not as good the III (but the III can still take 2 or 3 mins to get a lock from cold start). Hopefully better software will make the N95 a better navigation tool, i can't believe how crap Nokia Map (AKA Smart2go) is really. But it's cheap and will probably do for the occatioal time you are out and don't have a map or decent sav nav with you.

Just search for TomTom Navigator 6 on google there are quite a few people selling it. I assume you need the version on the Mini SD.

Have a look on eBay too. You should be able to get it on CD if you already have a microSD (not MiniSD) card for your N95.

EDIT: Just had a bit of a read. It seems that most Sirf Star II devices do lock on a fair bit quicker than the N95. i really do think that Nokia made a mistake when they designed the N95 but putting the GPS module in the place it is. But maybe it's because they had to put the phone aerial at the top and the GPS would have either interfered with the phone reception, or probably there was just not room.

 

[Snatch]

Have to echo with pretty much all that has been said here..
The out of box GPS package is crud..Don't waste your time with it..Get hold of Tomtom which is widely available from various sources incl ebay and run tomtom via an external receiver..
Seems Autopilot has the right idea and uses the Holux receiver, which is pretty much the best out there...If you don't want to spend too much on a receiver, try looking for Holox receivers...
I don't think it has Sirf star 3 technology, but it is a 32 channel receiver...It locks very quickly (as quick as Sirf star 3) and stays locked...I have had a few receivers in the past, and this ranks as one of the best for the price..You can pick one up for between £20-£35 on ebay..
Hope this helps

 

[Tejstar]

I went for this one in the end.

 

[t-force]

Autopilot: where did you get your extra Tomtom voices from? Are there any sites that offer them FOC for download?

 

[Tejstar]

It arrived yesterday and works a treat - thoroughly recommended!

 

[t-force]

Like Tejstar, I've just picked up Tomtom Navigator 6, with maps of GB and major roads in WE. I've only got one problem - when I'm keying in destination data, and I want to do it by postcode, I can't seem to type in letters - only numbers, which means that I always end up with a Dutch postcode - can anyone suggest a way round this bizarre problem?

 

[insomniak123]

Like Tejstar, I've just picked up Tomtom Navigator 6, with maps of GB and major roads in WE. I've only got one problem - when I'm keying in destination data, and I want to do it by postcode, I can't seem to type in letters - only numbers, which means that I always end up with a Dutch postcode - can anyone suggest a way round this bizarre problem?

i had problems finding by postcode on my n80 + tomtom6 - i needed to download a Postcodes file too, can't remember where or how i did it but its basically a list of all UK postcodes, allows you to search by postcode, and it's pretty damn accurate

 

[Tejstar]

Like Tejstar, I've just picked up Tomtom Navigator 6, with maps of GB and major roads in WE. I've only got one problem - when I'm keying in destination data, and I want to do it by postcode, I can't seem to type in letters - only numbers, which means that I always end up with a Dutch postcode - can anyone suggest a way round this bizarre problem?

Strange - mine worked with postcodes out of the box?!

 

[Aminator]

dont know for symbian but for ppc TT had the postcode zip file on the website which once downloaded is just drag and dropped into the folder and gives you the 7digit postcode search function