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| Product: Pocket GPS Portable Navigator Kit | Company: Pharos | | Web: www.pharosgps.com | Phone: 310-212-7088 | | Platform: Pocket PC | SRP: US$300
Street Price: $270 | Cred Rating: | Special Award: |
It seemed like everyone in the '60s was trying to "find themselves," through deep introspection, and, oh yeah, various chemical additives. It should come as no surprise that the new millennium has brought us a technological way of achieving a similar end, thanks to global positioning tech like the Pharos GPS.  The Pharos GPS Portable Navigator Kit is all you need to transform your Pocket PC organizer into a fully functioned GPS receiver for use while driving or walking, either on the road or in the woods. Relying on a system of satellites, the Pharos GPS can pinpoint your location anywhere on Earth within 30 feet. The kit includes the GPS unit, an additional external antenna, a mounting bracket for your car, and a power adapter. There are also several CDs that include the Ostia GPS software and maps for the entire United States, with additional maps downloadable from the Pharos website. The Pharos GPS unit is designed to fit in any Pocket PC with a CompactFlash slot. The unit is about 2.75 inches wide, 3.25 inches tall and about .75 inches thick at its thickest point. Most of that length actually fits in the compact flash slot, and the whole unit only sticks up about an inch and a half from the Pocket PC. The unit is even designed with a little bit of extra space on the card part of the unit to accommodate the little bump at the top of the new iPaq 3800s. The weight is a slim 2 oz. The hardware is accompanied by a software interface for Pocket PC operating system, and a few discs full of maps. Software installation is confusing because of a poorly designed interface -- there is no "wizard" to guide the user through the whole installation process of software and maps, and as a result, those new to Pocket PCs might have a little trouble installing the appropriate files. But once installed, the software is pretty straightforward to use, and full of great features. After you're up and running, all that's needed to...ah... "find yourself" is to plug the GPS unit in and find an open patch o' sky (the GPS system only works outside). Starting the software initially just brings up a blank page and the user is left to open the appropriate map for their region. It would have been handy here to have the software automatically open the last map accessed, but it's not that much of a hassle. Once the map is opened, the user must then "activate" the GPS. Once again, this need to activate doesn't make a lot of sense -- of course the user wants to activate the GPS, that's why they just started the software and opened the damn map! But I'm just niggling here since these minor interface issues fall by the wayside when everything's up and running. Once activated, the map is displayed and a small icon on the "tool bar" shows the status unit -- a smiley face turns yellow when acquiring the satellites, and green when it's got a lock. If you're interested to see the status in more detail, the "Sat. Info" option gives the exact position of all satellites, and their signal strength, in a bar chart and horizon map. The "GPS Info" option gives longitude, latitude, time, plus speed and compass heading when moving. This makes it a perfect tool for hikers and bikers, as well as for drivers. Switching back to the map view, a small red arrow appears on your exact location and displays all the streets around you. The scale of the map is displayed in the bottom left corner, and is completely adjustable, allowing you to zoom in and out as you wish. If you start driving around, the map will automatically adjust the scale to your speed -- zooming in when you're going slow and out again when moving at high speeds. This thoughtful feature allows you to more easily read the upcoming streets when driving slowly around town, but see more of the map while cruising along at highway speeds. In map mode, you can drive freely and navigate by the names of the streets that are displayed on the map, though only major streets are actually titled unless you tap on them. The software becomes even more useful when, now that you know where you are, you decide where you're going. On the toolbar there is a "Find Address" function that allows you to pinpoint a street address anywhere in the scope of your current map just by typing in the street name and then choosing the number from a range displayed on a list. Once chosen as your destination, another tap on the toolbar is required to find a route, which takes the PPC only a few seconds to compute. As soon as the route is set, the path is outlined on the map through a colored line tracing the shortest route on available streets. The software is sophisticated enough to not only choose the shortest route, but also to take into account one-way streets. Once you're on your way, you may be pleasantly surprised (I was) to find that there are both text and voice instructions to warn you of upcoming turns. On the toolbar below the map, a small window gives you the name of the next street you'll be turning on and the distance to that street. When you get close, a female voice informs you "left turn ahead," and then chimes when you're at the turn. The voice cues are definitely helpful, but because of the indistinct Asian origin of the person who recorded them, sometimes the instructions are less than clear: "light right ahead" is the vocal instruction for veering right, but it sounds like "right right ahead." Luckily these vocal instructions are standard .wav files that can be re-recorded, so for those who miss the days when their fathers taught them to drive, you can always get your dad to record a "Turn right...TURN RIGHT, YOU NUMBSKULL! WATCHOUT FOR THE DAMN TREE!" Navigating with the GPS software is efficient and easy. You can easily reverse your directions to find your way home without going through the route set up, and if you get off track for whatever reason, such as missing a turn, the software can be enabled to automatically find another route for you. If you prefer not to view the map while you're driving, you can switch to the "directions" screen, where the full text description of your trip is set out, i.e. "Turn right on Wisconsin Ave, .7 miles" One downside to the software is the large file sizes of the maps -- most of them cover just a small area, such as the D.C. metro area (D.C. and parts of Maryland, but not Virginia), but take up between 10 and 20MB of space. For those with a Pocket PC with dual expansion slots, it's not a big problem to keep a variety of maps on a Secure Digital storage card while the GPS occupies the CF slot. But other Pocket PCs, like the HP Jornada and the new Toshiba e310, or older WinCE machines, are limited to one slot and limited on-board RAM. For those units, a little juggling of data is required to make enough space for more than one map. Another niggling problem with the unit is that unless you have the GPS hardware installed, you cannot look up an address or find a route -- this is frustrating because sometimes you may want plan a trip without having to be outside or in the car. It would be a welcome feature to allow users to fully interact with maps and set routes without needing to install the hardware. My final complaint about the software is that it is clearly designed for driving, not walking. The software cannot be adjusted to ignore one-way streets, so you can't find the most efficient routes on foot. The Car Kit comes with both a power supply, a mounting bracket, and an external antenna for use in the car. The external antenna is necessary because you must have a clear view of the sky to use it. The external antenna is small -- only about the size of a Zippo, and has a two-foot cord so it can be placed on your dash. The power supply plugs into the car's lighter socket, but is only designed to work with iPaqs, Casios or HP Jornadas. For some reason though my Audiovox Maestro did not get sufficient current to recharge the battery. Car chargers are available from third parties for most other PPCs though....and you'll need one - the Pharos GPS draws quite a bit of juice (up to 500 mA) if you have the backlight on The PDA mounting bracket is probably the most disappointing portion of the kit; it is designed to click into the slots on your air vents, but did not work at all on my Jeep. Also, the mounting bracket is magnetic, requiring that you affix an adhesive-backed magnet to the back of your PDA. Finally, the way the bracket is designed blocks the power supply socket, on both the iPaq and the Maestro (I haven't tested others). Despite the interface quirks and an ill-designed mounting bracket, the Pharos GPS kit is an exceptional piece of hardware combined with full-functioned software. It allows you to turn your PDA in to a full-color GPS with little effort. Similar stand-alone GPS systems cost $600 or more and offer far less flexibility. Overall the Pharos GPS kit is one of the best add-ons for the Pocket PC platform that I've had the chance to play with, and it has certainly helped me "find myself," at least on a physical. We'll probably have to wait a few more years for metaphysical and cerebral orienteering technology we can slot into our PDAs. In the meantime, there's always the Magic 8 Ball. - Nate Heasley [5/10/02] Check out our other offerings:
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