GLONASS support announced for Sony Xperia ion, Xperia S, and most 2011 Xperia smartphones

If you rely heavily on GPS to find your way around, you probably know how frustrating it can be when it starts acting up. That usually happens when a large object, such as a building, gets in the satellite signal's way. Well, Sony is well familiar with the issue, and this is the solution it is going to tackle it with.

The Sony Xperia ion, Xperia S, and all of the company's 2011 Xperia lineup touting a Snapdragon S2 or S3 processor will be capable of hooking up to GLONASS for better positioning accuracy whenever GPS is not available. That includes the Sony Ericsson Xperia arc, Xperia ray, Xperia neo, Xperia PLAY, and more. Even the Sony Ericsson Live with Walkman is in the list.

If you haven't heard about GLONASS before, it is basically an alternative to GPS created and maintained by the Russian Space Forces. It reached full global coverage with its 24 satellites in October of last year. With its help, the number of satellites that you will have to rely on grows from 31 to a total of 55, which, according to recent testing, should improve the pinpointing precision of your  Sony Ericsson smartphone by as much as 50 percent.

And by the way, since Qualcomm itself announced last year that its Snapdragon S2, S3, and S4 processors will be compatible with the Russian satellite positioning system, GLONASS support alongside GPS is very likely to come to other makers' phones as well. Besides, using GPS and GLONASS simultaneously is already something that the iPhone 4S and the Samsung Galaxy Note can do, so there is no reason to get envious in case you own any of the two.

Excited about GLONASS support coming to your Xperia smartphone? Feel free to let us know by dropping a comment.

source: Sony Ericsson via Engadget