Originally Posted by BarryH_GEG

Strange that out of all these posts only a single Prime seems to work properly and no one else can duplicate lock-n-load's results. If months went by you could say that Asus may have changed something but every prime is no more than two weeks old so all of them should be the same. And an engineer said the antenna is probably soldered to the edge of the same circuit board the chip is on so dropping it wouldn't seem likely to change anything. Again, strange.

Easy on the name calling, buddy! I ain't no engineer, I work for a living! I take a lot of things apart and stuff I looked at the pictures of a Prime taken apart, and didn't see the familiar little white cables that would lead to remote antennas for WiFi, Bluetooth, etc, there could still be an antenna segment on one smaller circuit boards, and the connections between could be finicky (if they exist), which would explain the 'drop' fix. It appears that whatever the problem, it's wide spread enough that Asus will be aware of it, and have a fix--but reporting the issue is the biggest thing ya'll need to do! If I get one, I'm not leaving the parking lot before several things are checked!

Poll options needs added that says sometimes along with yes and no.

Originally Posted by briant97

Poll options needs added that says sometimes along with yes and no.

i will do that now.

I read the first 25 pages and then skipped to the end, so I am not sure what I missed. I hope I have the basics.

I thought mine was working for sure because Google Maps showed my exact location. And I saw the notification that it was searching for GPS so I knew something was a bit off- doh! Then I read and realized I needed to turn off the wifi and google location search functions.

I turned everything off except GPS. I went outside, used the Navigation app and locked onto a GPS signal to get directions within about a minute. A friendly voice told me I had lost GPS signal a few moments after I came back inside. I didn't reboot and I've not accepted the firmware update yet.

So mine works, yes?

I am on phone with Asus support and I am sad. Telling me they don't support third party apps. I told them they are the only ones that got the thing to work. Out of the box it does not work. I was told by there own support to install gps fix and he is claiming it doesn't say that in the notes. I didn't want to hang up the phone with my first call to support but they basically forced me and said install all these apps and try it. I told this 2nd guy that a huge thread is going on xda and he said those people don't know what they are doing.

Samsung Galaxy 10.1 vs Asus TF GPS

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I've been following this thread, but might have missed comparatives. So here is something I've tried, hopefully new to the thread.

I've had 2 Acer A500 tablets before, returned both only because of the microphone. My wife has a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, so I decided to compare her GPS performance to that of my new TFP.

To the point where I began the comparison, I had not been able to get mine to work (see GPS satellites, except 1 or 2 sporadically, and not lock at all).

I had discovered GPS Test, GPS Status, GPS Essentials, GPS Doctor, and they were on both machines. No satellites on my TFP visible, but the Tab was seeing 7-11, locking on 6-9. All this inside a second story bedroom. The Tab was operating the way I remember my A500s did. The signals on the Tab were strong (green).

Oddity: Just after I locked in with the Tab, I noticed that for some reason, the TFP was now seeing satellites, and locking. The signals were all weaker, yellow, but it was locking on to some and giving GPS lock. I also noticed that after getting a lock on 5-6, it would seem to reset back to seeing nothing and work its way back up again (GPS reset problem?).

Thought I was not going to have to return it, but I can't reproduce the behavior on my TFP anymore. Now, even after hard reset, no lock. I've tried many combinations of airplane mode, GPS on, test, wifi on, test, hard reset and even one factory reset. My gut feeling is that either (1) GPS antenna isn't feeding a decent signal to chip, or (2) there is some sporadic GPS reset problem on my TFP.

I would like to be able to navigate with my TFP in the car, wifi or not, so expect GPS to work.

So I guess, unless this is magically fixed by a software update soon, I will have to work with Asus / Best Buy to repair/replace/return this. Frustrating, and that Tab of my wife's is now on sale at Costco for $430, with ICS update just around the corner. Asus bleeding edge, bah.

Originally Posted by briant97

I am on phone with Asus support and I am sad. Telling me they don't support third party apps. I told them they are the only ones that got the thing to work. Out of the box it does not work. I was told by there own support to install gps fix and he is claiming it doesn't say that in the notes. I didn't want to hang up the phone with my first call to support but they basically forced me and said install all these apps and try it. I told this 2nd guy that a huge thread is going on xda and he said those people don't know what they are doing.

Everyone calling the Indian contact center's being told the same thing.

1) Hard reset

2) Turn on Wi-Fi

Until someone gives them something else to say they're just going to keep following the script. I'm sure most of them have never seen an Asus product except in pictures.

Someone who sent there's in for repair for the GPS issue should be getting it back in a week. If it's fixed that means the problem's been found and corrected. If it comes back NPF or with the dreaded "working as designed" that'll be the end of that.

They just gave me an rma number to send mine in for repair. This sucks just got the toy yesterday I don't want to send it back


I am also pretty upset with the way I have been treated by Asus support. I know they make wonderful products but question whether it is worth the buy if I am treated this way. However I have yet to compare asus support to any of their competitors so maybe they are better than them I don't know.

Originally Posted by GCurry

I would like to be able to navigate with my TFP in the car, wifi or not, so expect GPS to work.

Here's some scenarios where this would be an issue without using it as car navigation device.

1) Without Wi-Fi, you get the GPS to lock outdoors where it's clear. Once you change your location it will no longer be able to geo-locate until it can see the sky again or you connect to Wi-Fi. So s/w like CoPilot that works offline won't find or be able to track your location.

2) You're on vacation and want to use the walking directions in Google maps that you've cached to do some sightseeing in a foreign city. If it's clear outside it'll lock but the odds of it keeping up with you as you're walking are slim. If it loses lock it probably won’t be able to get it back.

3) While on the same vacation, you want to geo-tag the pictures that you're taking on your trip. If there's any signal it'll most likely be weak and the geo-tags could be off by 145 meters. If there's no signal, there will be no geo-tags.

I know these aren't typical uses but the only example given so far that people have glommed on to is car navigation. So if stuff like the above is not important to you, don't sweat it. If it is, hammer Asus for a fix.

First off I want to say not having a fully functional GPS does suck... but here is one thing to think about with this... Since the TFP is a WiFi only device and does not have a 3G/4G data option, if you were going to use apps like Google Maps and other applications that require a data connection to work correctly you will have to be connected to a WiFi hotspot... right?

Now the down side would be if you were say tethering it to your phone while you were driving or using a WiFi Mobile Hotspot.

Just a thought...