I’ve used the Nokia-branded external GPS with the N800 Internet Tablet, but I pretty much only did that in the car and headed somewhere.

So I’m a bit mystified by the reports of poor GPS performance in the N810. Some of these are for “I was moving around indoors” situations which I never tried.

Here’s what promethh wrote yesterday in the ITT forums:

I can usually keep a 5-satellite lock on a bus or near a building window. I can usually keep a 7-satellite lock when driving my Xterra or Forester. Acquisition times when warm/hot (near/at last location) have been 30sec-2min, and 2-6min when “cold” (unknown location)

Um-m, up to 6 minutes to acquire one’s position? (OK, from 2 to 6 minutes.)

Is this something that can be improved by software? Or will it only be fixed by a change to the hardware (eg, doing something with the antenna)?

Or is this a non-problem that isn’t going to interfere with real-world GPS use?