The installation of the device is very easy. After charging for about 2 hours or more, you can install it either on your PDA or BT enabled laptop. Remember, the pair key is four zeros (0000), in case the application asks for it. We recorded all produced data for a pre-selected route with VisualGPSX and later analyzed it with GPSLog. In order to measure the TTFF tests ("Time to First Fix" which is the time it takes for a GPS to determine its current position), we used GPSInfo "Cold Start" function. All tests ran simultaneously, under the same environmental conditions.

Using GPSInfo, we could see among other things, the device's firmware revision (3.1.1.)

- Tests Day One

On the first day, we tested the device with a clear sky, daylight, 39° C.

		Globalsat BT-338	Globalsat BT-359S
Time to First Fix (TTFF)	Secs	39 sec	42 sec
Fix	Invalid	0	0
	2D	0	0
	3D	100	100
Satellites	Average (in view)	10.09	10.81
	Average (in use)	8.35	7.54
Average Signal Level (in dB)	Maximum per Satellite	45.70	42.30
	Average per Satellite	32.78	30.99

The BT-359S is powered by the SiRF III chipset, so its performance was very good and came very close to what the BT-338 delivered. Globalsat has notified us that the product may need further fine tuning so there may well be improvements before its final release. But with such good performance already, most users won't even notice the difference.

- Indoor Sensitivity

We placed both receivers inside a house close to a big window and monitored their performance. Both the BT-359S and BT-338 had a 3D fix, but the BT-338 had somewhat higher reception levels.

- Overall impressions

In our tests, the BT-338 seemed to have better reception and sensitivity than the BT-359S, which seems logical since the device we had was an early release. We expect that the final product to hit the market will have been fined tuned and will offer the same, if not better performance than the BT-338.