Pharos 150 3.5-Inch Widescreen Portable Drive GPS Navigator with Text-To-Speech (Black)
Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at
1:44 am
|
User Reviews
Send this to a friend
|
| Pharos 150 3.5-Inch Widescreen Portable Drive GPS Navigator with Text-To-Speech (Black) |
| |
 |
| Manufacturer: Pharos |
| Customer Rating: |
|
| List Price: $149.99 |
| Sale Price: $87.35 |
| Availibility: Temporarily out of stock. Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your credit card will not be charged until we ship the item. |
 Free Shipping Available |
| Buy Now |
|
| |
- Large 3.5" TFT LCD with 16.7 million colors
- Fast route calculation by 32-bit CPU processor
- Text-To-Speech; turn-by-turn directions with voice prompts announcing the street name
- Entire US maps; NAVTEQ ON BOARD
- Built-in ultra sensitive 20-channel SiRFStarII GPS for fast and accurate positioning
|
 Pharos PDR150 - does as expected - HACKABLE! |
| Review Date: November 29, 2007 |
| Reviewer: O. Leon, San Francisco, CA |
PROS:
- Destinator v7
- clean interface
- good options
- quick to pick up GPS on cold start (took ~15 seconds while sitting indoors about 8 feet from window)
- works as expected
- Text to Speech
- HACKABLE!
CONS:
- no battery meter in Destinator v7
- not sure if I'll get the advertised 5-6 hours battery
Price paid:
$83, after coupons/discounts/rebates/taxes/shipping
MSRP:
$200
Included in box:
- GPS unit, 3.5" screen (with 1GB unlabelled SD card)
- carrying case (pretty good quality)
- home/wall charger
- car charger
- USB cable (charge with computer)
- window mount (_much_ better than the pdr135 mount I have)
- cd manual
- warranty card
- quick start poster
Software:
- Windows CE .NET 4.2 Core
- Destinator v7
Processor:
- Motorola i.MX21 @ 266Mhz
Memory:
- 64MB, about 45MB usable (guessed)
--------------
My current/previous GPS devices:
- Belkin Bluetooth (rebadged Fortuna) with Belkin Navigator (forget which maps) + Compaq iPaq h1940 (or laptop with bluetooth) = I love this unit, still use it but it's not as convenient as a standalone unit
- Mio C220 - basic unit - does what it needs to do but sometimes not accurate
- Pharos PDR135 - Ostia software not great, but loaded with Tom Tom Navigator or other software this unit works well (hackable)
--------------------
The Pharos PDR150 does what it's supposed to do. I've only been using this for a day so far but it seems fine. The Destinator v7 softare seems fine, the GPS processor works just like the other SiRFstarIII chipsets
The great thing is that this unit is _hackable_ - I've loaded Tom Tom Navigator v6 and it works fine - I'm switching between Destinator v7 and Tom Tom Navigator v6 to test out and play.
(perhaps I'll write more if pricegrabber starts offering a rebate for this review ;))
OVERALL:
5-stars as one of the best in this price range, since it does what it's supposed to do, has TTS, is hackable, and has an SD-card slot. For $80, how can I complain? This is the best bang-for-the-buck and beats out all the other BF2007 GPS deals (FYI I purchased this on "Cyber Monday 2007") --- Would I purchase this for $150-200 (current price after rebates), would I purchase it again? Compared to the other units I've used in this price range, yes, I would purchase this again. However, keep in mind that the "hackability" factor plays a big role in my decision. Out of the box, this thing still works well but may not be the best fit for everyone.
|
Excellent little GPS for price
|
| Review Date: December 11, 2007 |
| Reviewer: John Jacobs, Sebastian, Fl |
This little GPS works great. Overall 8 out of ten
1. Text to Speech- 8 out of 10 Mispronounces some street names but still clear and understandable. plenty loud, Speech is not hesitant.
2. GUI Interface - 8 out of 10 This unit does just about everything a unit costing 100 or more dollars can do and more. I just found out it will give you latitude and longitude, and altitude. Recalculation of routes are exceptionally fast. The GUI is not hi-tech cutting edge, But I would say up to date as far as tech goes, and sensible and easy to understand. Took me about an hour to understand and use all the controls in the GUI.
3. Hardware - 8 out of 10 The unit itself seems well built. The hardware, Windshield mount, car adapter, power adapter all well built.
And it comes with a nice little case.
I have a home in a remote area of Georgia, It found it on the map which I can't get some more expensive units to do.
I paid about $99 including rebate, an excellent value for its abilities. Thats Black Friday prices. IfPharos 150 Drive GPS you can get this unit with some sort of discount or rebate, in my opinion buy it.
Pharos is a reputable company, with a pretty good track record of support for their products. And from what I can gather from the forums they will be updating these units. Uses Windows CE Net 4.2 which opens other doors.
Cons
1. Brightness resets back to 100% after turning off then on again.
2. If you have big fingers you might have a problem, but you can always use the stylus.
3. Difficult to remove unit from cradle. I struggled with this for about five minutes.
4. New unit, not alot of info or support right now on Pharos site.
|
Best little cheap GPS out there
|
| Review Date: December 23, 2007 |
| Reviewer: San Antonio Sam, San Antonio, TX USA |
The Pharos 150 has all the bells and whistles of a unit costing $100 more. The text-to-speech is worth demanding in any auto GPS and this one has it. I took a trip into a nearby town, selecting a high school (POI) as my go to location. In a 40 mile trip, over freeways and city streets, I never had to even glance at the screen. It vocally tells me to "stay right" or "stay left" as I near a turn; it announces the street name and highway number several times starting 1/2 mile out. You can enter your own favorite places, many of them, for future use to save re-entry. It remembers your last few plotted trips for easy re-use if you decide to stop or cancel along the way. It reroutes you if you miss a turn. It never asked me to "u-turn" when I missed an exit. It will even warn you when you exceed a posted speed limit even though I never used that feature. The battery is rated for 7 hours I believe, I've only used it on battery once for about 2 hours. Battery useful for walking trips and, yes, it will plot trips on foot provided you don't stray far from any road. A useful replacement for all those maps cluttering up my glove box. I paid $100 and that deal goes away Dec 31, 2007.
Update 3/23/08: still like this GPS unit. Works great, battery has generous life. No false routing and finds many short-cuts. Even warned me verbally to be careful when I turned into a gated community, guess it didn't want me to be hit by the gate. Navteg maps great; operating system great; text-to-speech absolutely a must have along with SIRF chip-set. You can hunt for this and get it around $150 now and it is a bargain at that price.
Update Nov 9, 2009: can't hold a signal reliably anymore. Gives you the "gps too low" message over and over. Comes back on track later...has never got me lost for long. Still, with no map updates or other support I would no longer recommend purchase. Garmins (refurbed as new) go for under $100 and are great. Too bad because Pharos mapping engine was great. |
|
Tagged with: 3.5inch • asin • black • drive • navigator • pharos • portable • ReviewAZON • texttospeech • widescreen • with
Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!
