Coolpix P510 GPS performance

I tested out the P510 gps yesterday side by side with a handheld GPS (Garmin Colorado) and my Android smart phone (HTC Incredible 2).

Overall I have to say I'm disappointed with the the P510 gps. I would say if you're buying the P510 because of it's GPS: Don't do it. Overall I really like the P510 and I will definitely be keeping it, but I just won't use the GPS. I will stick to carrying my Garmin and tagging the photos at home.

The issues I see:

1. Takes too long a get a GPS lock. Both my Garmin and smart phone took under a minute. The P510 took many minutes.

2. It doesn't appear to be able to get a GPS lock when the camera is off. At the start of my hike yesterday I turned on GPS and started a log. Then turned off the camera. Over the course of an hour hike the GPS never got a good lock.

3. Once the P510 does have a good GPS lock the camera can be turned off and the lock seems to be held pretty well. But it still takes 10 seconds after the camera is turned back on for the position to be recorded in any photos that are taken. Half of my pictures taken on the hike did not have GPS data because I took the picture too quickly. This one is the deal breaker for me. Ten seconds is an eternity when trying to get a picture of a moving target like a bird.

Here is a comparison of the P510 to the Garmin to show #2 above. The black line is the Garmin, the blue is the P510:

Here I left the P510 powered on until it got a GPS lock. Black is the Garmin, blue is P510 and red is my Smart phone. The P510 is hanging around my neck along with my garmin. The smart phone is in my pants front pocket (I was impressed that the smart phone could get any gps signal at all when in my pocket like this).

Greg