robinsonanna's Full Review: Pharos Science (PDR140) Car GPS Receiver
I received this unit for a present. Had a hard time with it from the start. Gave it the full 30 day trial, before finally returning it.
It freezes up constantly, needs to be reset several times a day for normal operation. No wonder they placed the reset button in an easily accessible location. At times it would not turn off, unless you do a hard reset and wipe its memory. At times it would take it 30-40 minutes to unfreeze and get going for the day, by which point I have found where I was going with a paper map. At times the outside buttons did not operate for no apparent reason, only to come back to life on their own next time we used it.
The zoom went barzerk several times and clicked incessantly zooming in and out by itself until the unit was reset. Many times it just did not respond.
At least every other day, while driving with the map on the MP3 player would come on the screen by itself. I never got a chance to try the MP3 operation, so can't speak to that.
Like the main screen menu, but all the secondary menus are difficult in that they are not made for finger pushing with large icons, but instead show as a list of small print, very hard to push while driving. For example changing the screen from Day to Night you would have to push the menu icon, scroll 3 screens down, then select Options, then select View then select a tiny button called change, then select Map to get back. And as that operation needs to be done twice a day, that is completely impractical. No comparison to the Tomtoms light sensitive switch.
The phone feature looked good and easy to use. Good quality on the speaker, but the people on the other end have a hard time understanding what you are saying.
Map was easy to read and understand, easy to browse and move over to see whats coming next and easy to get back to the route.
POI finder was fine. No complaints.
The windshield mount worked well. Though in California its against the law to have things mounted on the windshield, it does not appear the manufacturer provided for that.
Contacts looked good. The unit promised to be able to transfer contacts from Outlook and others, but I could never get that to work. The transfer process is cumbersome and in the end the contacts did not show up in the machine. Also, the contacts appear to be a rolodex only and as far as I could tell you could not call out from there or map to the address of your contact. You would have to look up an address or phone number and then go out to phone or map and enter it there manually. Could be improved upon.
Love the large screen. Hard to see in bright conditions. Great all other times.
Customer Services was OK. Had to call them twice. On hold 10 minutes each time. They tried very hard to resolve the problems, but the reps did not seem knowledgable of their product. Each time I was put on hold for them to go ask somebody else. Their suggestions seemed more like guesses and not always correct ones. "A" for effort.
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