I seem to be one of the fortunate ones who hasn't experienced any problems with his GPS on the N97. And I am grateful, really I am! LOL
However, I noticed something the other day that I thought I'd share. Not sure if it will be of any use, but what the heck!
On the few occasions that I have used Maps for navigation since getting the N97, I have done so with the device sitting on my passenger seat as I don't yet have a proper N97 car holder (Nokia still haven't shipped the CR-116 yet 😡 ) so I have gone by the voice commands and they have been absolutely spot on, and on occasion, when it was safe to do so, I have looked at the screen and it's as accurate as my N95 was, so I never had any issue. Plus, all my other usage when walking or static has not shown any issues with the GPS at all.
Anyway, on Saturday, I had to go pick an exercise bike up for my missus that she bought on eBay and had to venture into a part of Colchester that I had not frequented often, so decided to give Maps a proper workout. Not having a proper car cradle, I dug out an old generic phone holder. It's one of those sprung loaded ones that grips the device on either side. I popped my N97 in and tried not to squeeze too hard so as not to trigger the camera button.
So, I inputted my destination and off I set. Within seconds of me moving off, Maps started to play silly buggers! It was behind, it kept doing route recalculations, it kept saying that it was waiting for the GPS, and so on. After a while it calmed down somewhat, but was still erratic at best. the speed readout kept going to zero, the map would stop moving, it would then show me on another road.... I was seriously fecked off at this point!!
Anyway, I got to Colchester, which I didn't need the guidance for and hoped that I might get a semblance of normal use, just to find this house. But no. Thankfully, I know Colchester pretty well, so was able to find it after a bit of hunting.
So I got home and was mightily hacked off. I decided to try deleting the Cities folder and qf file as suggested by Ian on here, and then going outside, getting a lock and then re-downloading the maps.
This morning, I decided to try again on my trip into work, so I mounted the phone in the generic cradle again, and the fecker started playing up AGAIN!
But then, the answer came. I removed the phone from the cradle, restarted Maps and left it on my passenger seat. I set my destination and set off again. And now it worked perfectly!! Pin point accurate and smooth as the proverbial baby's bum!
So, my deduction is that the holder was pressing the camera button and causing the device to splutter all over the shop, which is understandable, I guess. Could this be the reason for some other peoples bad experiences with the GPS?
I'll be able to determine this for real once I get hold of a CR-116 😊