Maybe I'm not understanding the question, as my phone is an Android S3.

The GPS works without the network because it gets the signals directly from the Satellites. To see that location on a map, you either need a network connection to download the map or you need a map for the area already downloaded and stored on the phone. I think the "AGPS" gets some, but not all, of the location information from the network. Straight GPS can give you a good location.

So, no, my phone does not need the network to get a location, as long as I have maps downloaded onto the phone.

There are a lot of free apps out there--I think there was a thread a while back on which were the best...

Are Apple products different?