Problems using new smartphone to view maps

usignuolo

I recently lost my aging mobile phone and bought, in a hurry as I was about to go away, and needed one urgently, a Sony Xperia E. Maybe not the best choice, but I am not a great phone user and it seemed OK. I bought it from Orange with a new plan (phone minutes, texts and data) and the phone and text options work fine.

It also has a lot more icons than my old one and I thought Iwould dip a toe in the water today and use one of the preloaded apps, in this case maps. I turned on the wifi and google (for which I am already registered) and the all GPS elements and clicked on the maps icon. All I got was a "No network available" message although I was sitting in Tesco car park at the time and had just texted my OH and spoken to my sister successfully, so no signal problem. I have not used any of my monthly data allowance yet.

Is there something I need to do to activate the maps option, which I have not already done? I sort of thought it would work over the phone network like the voice and text options?

wiogs

Were you connected to any wifi network? Do you have data enabled on the phone?


Text and calls are not dependent on the above.

usignuolo

Forgive my ignorance but I did not use data on my last phone. I bought this one with a plan which includes a monthly data allowance. Is there something specific I have to do to enable it, besides what I outlined above? Also I assumed it would work over the 3g phone network?

wiogs

Yes it will work over the 3G network but the ability to use the data may require to be enabled.

On my iPhone I have the ability to turn data on or off. There will be a setting to do this on yours no doubt.


Have you used any other app that connects to the internet?

keith1950

I may be misunderstanding your post but why would you switch on WiFi if you wanted to use 3G ??

Rusty!

You are indeed misunderstanding, data refers to mobile data (3G etc), not WiFi.

grumbler

usignuolo wrote: »

Forgive my ignorance but I did not use data on my last phone. I bought this one with a plan which includes a monthly data allowance.

How big is the allowance?

Is there something specific I have to do to enable it, besides what I outlined above?

Something like
Settings >> Wireless & networks >> Mobile networks >> Data enabled (tick box)

An icon like in the notifications bar indicates mobile data connection.

usignuolo

I just switched on everything I thought might be relevant. Which included wifi. I was not expecting it to use the wifi right off but I thought you could switch on wifi and if there was a network locally try to connect to that before using my 3G data connection.

As I said, my old smart phone was not that smart and also my new one does not have the Orange homepage so I am having to learn my way around the settings on the new one. Will look for network enabled option.

I have 200mb data monthly allowance, which should be enough as I do not plan to download games, watch films etc. I have not used any of it yet this month

forgotmyname

Only 200mb. Make sure your apps are not set yo auto update. That could soon eat into your monthly allowance if they update whilst your on the move.

Maybe the map got fixated on the fact you had wifi on and no signal to it. A bit like the simpsons game. For some odd reason it will suddenly popup saying connecting to data not wifi.

wiogs

There may well have been wifi locally which your phone connected to but that you would have to actually log into via a browser before actually being able to use. That could be why nothing happened.


With such a small data allowance I would get to know the apps using wifi at home if possible.

As above make sure nothing is auto updating.


As an alternative to mapping you could download free sat nav apps which don't require a data connection for route planning.

wongataa

On Android phones turning on Wi-Fi usually turns off mobile data.