Nokia Maps is a great application for any phone user who spends any time on the road. However, anyone who has used it before knows that it comes with it’s own set of problems, with the most annoying being the bad GPS signal. It often takes more than 10-20 minutes to get a satellite lock if it even gets one at all. A bit of Googling showed that many people are having the same problem and in my messing around I found a workaround which works quite well and which I’ll share here.

It seems like the main problem is a bug in the Nokia Maps software which makes it hard for Nokia Maps to pick up a GPS signal and lock onto it, so the solution is to find another means of picking up the GPS signal and once you’re locked onto that signal, to then open Nokia Maps.

(I tested this on my Nokia E71 and it works flawlessly, so I would expect the same for other Nokia handsets)

The way that I pick up the GPS signal is by using Google Maps, which should be downloaded and installed by going to http://maps.google.com via the Nokia Browser. The reason you use the Nokia Broswer and not some other browser such as Opera Mini or Skyfire is that the Nokia Browser is able to provide the Google Maps website with your phone details and then the Google Maps website will make the correct download for your handset available to you.

Once you’ve downloaded Google Maps onto your handset, open it and you’ll see it start searching for GPS satelites. With mine it took about 30 seconds before I got the “GPS active status message which allowed me to see my current location on the map. Once you’ve got a GPS signal in Google Maps then open Nokia Maps (while keeping Google Maps open) and you should find that you have a GPS signal immediately! You can then close Google Maps and enjoy your strong GPS signal.

If this solution worked for you then please let me know