Customer Reviews

Pharos PDR200 4-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(9)

 

 

This is an excellent general purpose GPS unit oriented toward vehicular applications. The widescreen format LCD display is bright, crisp, and mine arrived with no dead pixels or other defects. A small stylus is embedded in the back right side of the case, and in general most of the functions can be accessed with a finger instead.

PROS:

Has both driving and walking modes, and is large enough to be useful while driving yet small enough to still be useful while walking around trails and downtown areas. Signal acquisition is usually very fast, but on occasion it has taken up to 3 minutes to lock in enough satellites to function. Text-to-Speech functionality is excellent, and gives you plenty of advance notice of when it's time to turn. Display is extremely bright, the speaker is suitably loud, and the user interface is serviceable. You can register on the web site to receive yearly map updates. You can also remove the unit's SD card without voiding your warranty!

CONS:

Obviously, maps won't contain any roads built in the last 18 months or so. Opting for Windows CE as a platform was probably not the best choice for something like this, and it shows in the absolutely abysmal amount of time it takes to search through points of interest as well as various stalls going into and out of some menus. The unit feels sluggish thanks to the OS's overhead, but I've read this is common to many GPS units. The user interface is serviceable, but far from optimal, with some elements being non-finger-friendly due to their small size. The placement and orientation of the charger port may be troublesome to some people.

OTHER THOUGHTS:

Contrary to some reports, this bundle does NOT contain an AC adapter, or a case. You get the unit+stylus, a DC car charger, and a car windshield mount. That's it. In short, it's well worth the money.

Kudos on the economical price for a TTS GPS. Liked the speed limit alert and immediate route recalculation feature. Also enjoyed the large, bright, easy to read screen and qwarty keyboard. The Pharos PDR200 begans to lose points on the touchscreen feature. When tapping any of the buttons on the bottom it would trigger a button way above it, if it triggered a button at all. The device froze several times and had to be reset each time. When trying to use the POI feature and the Where I am button was selected, it would give me locations in Washington and I'm in Los Angeles. Couldn't figure that one out. The GPS also lacked judgement in finding the quickest or shortest route. When taking the freeway it constantly wanted me to exit the freeway and take the streets. Needless to say the quality of performance was not up to par.

What a disappointment- I bought this gift for my father for christmas.

Alright, so first off this product is not defective am I'm giving this product one star for its overall functionality. This item is not easy to use, at all, and the software is outdated. Having owned a tomtom and garmin already, I can tell you this item is comparable only as a cheap-knock off.

When you turn the unit on, there is complicated menu, and you have to PUSH the screen or else the button don't work. The unit is also very slow, frustratingly slow.

You might think if a product performs this bad, that its base function would at least work well. WRONG, it takes forever to get a signal, but you quickly loose it in wooded areas. And forget entering directions, the keypad is small and it couldn't find my home address!

After one day of use, I am sick of this product. I told my father I will buy him a better gps, and really because I feel so bad about giving him this piece of junk on one of the happiest days of the year.

With Tomtom units now selling at 100$ - 150$, I can't understand why anyone would buy this poor quality gps for almost the same price.

What a disaster after buying this GPS, absolutely waste of money. Very outdated map and first 2 week got the signal after half hour and later there is no signal and waiting for signal for ever. Contacting customer service is pain, now I sent this device to them for repair by my own expenses.

**Waste of money, do not buy this GPS**

I bought this unit after doing a lot of research on everything that was available in the under $150 range. I have owned GPS units from several of the better known manufactures, and they all disappointed me when it came down to what was most important, which is getting me there via the quickest route without any surprises (Dirt roads, Dead ends, etc.). I have had the Pharos for over a month now and it has been an excellent device with intuitive software. I've already ordered another one for a family member.

The Pharos Drive GPS 200 is an excellent VALUE. I'd refer anybody considering this unit to a Tom's Guide review of "5 Stellar GPS Units Under $150": http://www.tomsguide.com/us/GPS-navigation-cheap,review-1181-10.html . The Tom's Guide review was written on December 22, 2008. I am definitely satisfied!

I was pretty skeptical with the price. It performed pretty much on par with my Magellan 3100.

Pros:

* windshield mount is solid

* fast to recalculate route

* fast to find a signal (i read the other reviews, so i'm lost as to why they had difficulty or if their expectation was higher than it should be)
text to speech for the street names was good, but it does become annoying to hear it four times in a row (1 miles, .5 mile, .2 mile, and actual turn)

Cons:

* map is outdated, and no current map available (although it was stated previously that the map was about 2 years old)

* icons are small (at least they give you a stylus and a stylus holder in the unit)

* menus take a little getting used to compared to the Magellan

It's worth the money considering that I don't need to rely on it everyday. I couldn't recommend it for someone who would rely on one on a daily or semi-daily basis. Great for road trips, or learning your way around a new town.

Bought this unit about 2 weeks ago. Well worth the money. A few minor issues prevented me from giving it a 5 star rating:

1. GPS reception is weak in car. When the unit is placed on car seat it would lose GPS intermittenly. The only place to get reliable GPS reception is by placing it next to windshield.

2. When the unit is plugged into car charger it produced an interference noise in my car's AM radio.

3. The beeping sound when entering address by touch screen is misleading. It beeps when you touch any area in screen even when no charcter has been selected.

I have owned this device for about 2 months and I have to say, it is one of the best GPS devices that I have used! The automatic re-routing is very useful especially when you are not familiar with the area you are traveling to. I was able to find several POI's without any problems.

I let my sister borrow the device for her trip. She was so impressed with the unit that she went out and purchased one for herself!!! I would recommend this device to anyone who is looking for an economical and user friendly GPS device.

First time purchase of a GPS system. Easy to program and very accurate just recently used on out of state trip. As with all GPS though be careful with point of interest such as restaurants. It will get you to a McDonalds but maybe not the one you think if you have address it is excellent.