Still, there's an enormous difference between older GPS chipsets and new ones as the SiRF III set and the MTK set. My old SiRF star II GPS goes completely blind as soon as I'm behind my living room window (there's some metal in it), my MTK-based GPS works fine anywhere in the house (well I didn't try the cellar..), it sees and locks on to 6-10 satellites which isn't much worse than outdoors. The old GPS was a unit where you had to be well aware of its limitations, the new one is an almost use-anywhere device.

It's almost like these magical chipsets are able to overcome the inherent limitations in the GPS system. (I also guess that newer satellites have slightly higher power output than the old ones though, however I have not verified this.)