Pharos 150 3.5-Inch Widescreen Portable Drive GPS Navigator with Text-To-Speech (Black) | 
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| Brand: Pharos
Category: CE
List Price: $149.99
Buy New: $94.99
You Save: $55.00 (37%)
New (36) Used (1) from $94.99
Rating:  51 reviews
Sales Rank: 303
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 320 x 240
Display Size: 3.5
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 3.9 x 1 x 3.3
MPN: PDR150
Model: PDR150
UPC: 818948002525
EAN: 0818948002525
ASIN: B000XX4M26
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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| Features:
| • | 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 |
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| Accessories:
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Getting lost is easy. Pharos helps make finding your way even easier. Using intuitive text-to-speech technology, the Pharos Drive GPS 150 makes it easy to keep your eyes on the road when looking for a specific address. It will help you find you way with voice prompts and turn-by-turn spoken instructions that include name of the street or highway. The large 3.5" color touch screen LCD clearly displays the preloaded U.S. street level maps and navigation routing.
"From the Manufacturer (June 19, 2008)"
Designed for portability, the Pharos Drive GPS 150 offers just the right balance of power, portability and price for newcomers to GPS receivers. Measuring less than an inch thin and under 4 inches wide, the compact Drive GPS 150 is great for driving with the included car mount and it can be easily slipped into a purse, briefcase, or backpack for usage while on foot. 
The Pharos Drive GPS 150 in black. |
The Drive GPS 150 features a 3.5-inch color screen, quick route calculation, and turn-by-turn directions with voice prompts. It comes with everything needed to use the unit, including both car and AC power cords and a 1 GB Secure Digital (SD) memory card that's pre-loaded with street level maps of the United States. This model comes in black, but it's also available in pink and blue.The Drive GPS 150's intuitive navigation software offers text-to-speech functionality that guides you with turn-by-turn, voice-prompted directions. If you miss a turn along the route, the Drive GPS 150 automatically recalculates a route and gets you back on track, pronouncing the names of the streets along the way. If you're on foot, the Drive GPS 150 provides a pedestrian mode that plots routes with pedestrian options and preferences in mind. 
The Drive GPS measures less than 1 inch thin and weighs 6.4 ounces (black model shown). | 
The 3.5-inch color LCD clearly indicates your route. |
The highly sensitive, 20-channel SiRFStarIII GPS receiver provides a rapid time-to-first-fix positioning and can acquire a signal even in urban canyons and under dense foliage. It's matched with a 32-bit CPU processor for quick recalculation of your route should you get off the original course. The 3.5-inch color touchscreen LCD has a 320 x 240-pixel resolution and a color depth of 16.7 million colors for a clear display of the preloaded U.S. street level maps and navigation routing. You can choose to see a two-dimensional or three-dimensional map adjusted specifically for day time or night time conditions. When you begin a selected journey, the Drive GPS 150 provides an overview of your complete route, the total driving distance to your destination, the estimated travel time, and the complete destination address. If you don't have a street address, you can simply navigate to a point on the map by manipulating the touchscreen and selecting it as your destination--the Drive GPS 150 will then calculate your route. The Drive GPS 150 also comes with a Points of Interest (POI) list that collects thousands of interesting or useful places organized by easy-to-find categories, from shopping centers to restaurants to gas stations. And many of the categories have subcategories to help narrow the choices--for example, under gas stations you'll find names of particular brands. Other features include: - Save favorite addresses and points of interest to the Address Book
- Your most recent 64 locations are saved in the Recent Places menu for easy access
- Specify certain types of roads that you want to exclude from route calculations
- Internal speaker with 3.5mm stereo earphone jack
- Mini USB connector
- 1200 mAh rechargeable lithium-polymer batter with 5 to 7 hours of continuous operation; 4-hour recharging tiem
- Dimensions: 3.94 x 3.31 x 0.95 inches (WxHxD)
- Weight: 6.4 ounces
What's in the Box
Pharos 150 GPS device, 1 GB SD memory card, USB cable, car mount, car charger, AC adapter, travel bag, printed quick-start guide, CD with manual
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 Pharos PDR150 - does as expected - HACKABLE! November 29, 2007
O. Leon (San Francisco, CA)
58 out of 60 found this review helpful
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)
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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)
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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 December 11, 2007
John Jacobs (Sebastian, Fl)
24 out of 24 found this review helpful
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 December 23, 2007
San Antonio Sam (San Antonio, TX USA)
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
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.
Great GPS for the Price December 26, 2007
Kevin H. La Counte (Anaheim, CA USA)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I bought this unit because I'm a delivery driver for vons.com and have to to deliver groceries to different houses all over the place. My brother let me borrow his Garmin Nuvi for a month before I bought this one. I didn't have the money to buy the Garmin however. This little GPS works just as well if not better. It has not failed me yet. It does mispronounce some streets, but the text feature on it is great. I bought this through dell.com for $150 and it's been a good investment as it saves me from having to find things on a map. The only time I've had a bit of trouble is when there are really big clouds, it can lose a signal, but I had that problem with the Garmin as well. Definately buy this item!
Accurate and comes with all these bonus accessories! January 11, 2008
Charles Grimes (Pittsburgh, PA United States)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I switched to the Pharos Drive 150 after a Mio c230 proved to be very inaccurate due to a zip code glitch. Thus far, this unit has been much more accurate and easier to use than the Mio. I decided to try the Pharos because it was highly rated by Amazon's editors and it came with some extras. The bonus accessories include an AC power cord, a built-in stylus (that is pulled out of the unit when needed), and a swell case/travel bag.
The unit has a "Walking Mode" that you can switch to. This feature, the AC power cord, and the carrying case would come in very handy if you are on a vacation or trip without your car. You could navigate on foot.
Overall, the Pharos Drive 150 is an accurate GPS with text-to-speech and a lot of POI's. Meanwhile, the accessories make it a great value.
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