[brudgers]

GPS based on solely on satellite signals tends to require several to tens of minutes before it can provide an accurate location. Cell phone geolocation tends to much much faster because it utilizes terrestrial radio signals from cell towers and wifi networks and who knows what else...a database of such signals is part of the what else.

[4ad]

Erm, my Garmin GPSMAP 64 can get a fix after a reboot in about one second. And if I didn't boot it in a few months it takes 15 seconds tops.

You are thinking of very old and very crappy GPSes.

Today GPSes not only get a fix very quickly, but don't even use much battery. My Garmin records tracks continuously through daylight for several days until I have to replace the two AA batteries.

[1] https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/140020

[brudgers]

Thanks. I'd expect better performance out of bespoke hardware than a camera feature. That's why if GPS was really something I wanted, I'd get a handheld GPS because it's less than the bulk and weight of many lenses.

[nradov]

An accurate GPS receiver literally weighs a few grams now. I have one in my wristwatch. Weight and bulk aren't valid reasons to leave GPS out of cameras.

[brudgers]

I don't disagree. For me, if I really cared about GPS, I would buy a GPS and drop it in a pocket. I would not tie a camera decision to its availability or unavailability because GPS does not really affect how I rate the quality of my photographs. On the other hand, if I was taking crime scene photographs where geolocation had evidentiary value, then my concerns might be different.

[nradov]

My old point-and-shoot camera with a built-in GPS receiver can go from completely powered off (battery out) to an accurate GPS fix in under 4 minutes as long as it has an unobstructed view of the sky. So your time estimate is way too high in most cases.

Cell phones are even faster because they pick up an initial approximate location from the cell phone tower and also automatically download GPS satellite ephemeris data.

[brudgers]

To me, four minutes seems to fall in the range of "several to tens of minutes."

[nradov]

Sorry, I misread your earlier comment.

[collinmanderson]

Laptops (and phones) use the mac addresses of nearby wifi networks to approximate location (especially inside buildings where GPS signal is low.)

Though it requires an internet connection an online database to actually compute the location. So, probably not as useful for a camera.

skyhookwireless.com is one example of a wifi location database.