A fine & cheap GPS car navigation system for your Pocket PC
Written: Jul 25 '03 (Updated Oct 22 '03)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Very accurate, voice prompts, uses address contact from your PDA. No cables.
Cons: Big map files. GPS unit blocks headphone jack.
The Bottom Line: Excellent, accurate GPS for travel from point A to point B without getting lost. It even speaks. Version 6.0 has greatly expanded "points of interest".
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| kubotabx2200's Full Review: Pharos Systems CF/Serial Modular GPS PF023 |
I bought the very similar Pharos compact flash system for my Dell Axim X5, from Dell. The modular system has too many wires and cables as you can see from the photos. The compact flash system is just that: one Compact Flash GPS card that plugs into the CF slot on the Dell Axim or other Pocket PC. And a CD containg the mapping softward and US maps.
I thought about the pure modular system shown above but the advantage of the CF system is no cables to lose or tangle.
I just got a free update from the Pharos website, downloaded their new Ostia 6.0 software. It fixes a lot of the earlier issues with 5.0 so I am updating this review.
OVERVIEW
The GPS hardware/software combination turns your Dell Axim or other pocket PC into a self contained navigation system. It will direct you from point A to point B on local road, highways etc. by getting your position from the GPS receiver and drawing it on a set of moving maps that you download to your pocket PC. The maps are very detailed. You enter your origin and your destination, and Ostia figures out the route and gives you turn by turn instructions. It even speaks to you ... "Left turn ahead ... bing bong". Don't worry about missing a turn, if you do it gets you back on track.
For those of you who rent cars from Hertz and have ever used their NeverLost GPS navigation system ... well the Pharos system is remarkably similar. It does have some limitations but hey this is a $200 system not a $2,000 standalone GPS system. Trust me you will be very happy with it.
INSTALLATION
Installing the software was a breeze. It took 15 minutes and I was up and running. The hardware is nothing to install. Just slap the GPS unit into the CF slot on the Axim.
The Pharos kit comes with 2 separate programs: Ostia 2003 software installs on the Pocket PC when you sync. The MapFinder software installs on your desktop or laptop PC.
HOW IT WORKS
The way it works is, the Ostia 2003 software runs on the Dell Axim. It draws the moving maps on the screen, gets your location from the GPS. It displays your current position as a moving arrow drawn on the road map. It displays in big print, the name of the next street or exit you need to take, whether it is a right turn or left turn, and the distance to the next turn. When you get close to the turn it says for example "left turn ahead ... bing bong!" when it is time to turn. It is extremely accurate. It sounds the bing bong just before the turn itself.
Now one of the great features of Ostia 6.0 is that you can click on Destination and it will let you look up the name of one of your contacts from the Address Book feature of your PDA. Slick! That is the kind of tight integration you would hope for with this kind of software. Then click "New Route" and it will direct you to the person's house or business by using the address you already entered in the address book.
Starting with the new Ostia version 6.0, you can route to "recent destinations". It keeps track of the dozen or so destinations you have visited, and lets you pick one from a list. So you do not have to type in the destination address every time.
One minor nit the Compact Flash receiver blocks the headphone jack on the Dell Axim. Not a complaint against Pharos really. I was planning on running the voice prompts into the car stereo system well that's out of the question now. But it turns out the voice prompts are easily heard through the loud if somewhat tinny built in speaker of the Axim. Plenty loud enough to hear and understand even in a noisy automobile.
Another big advantage of the Phoros/Dell Axim set up is I can carry it everywhere. All you need is the address of where you are going, or a street intersection, and the Pharos GPS will get you there on the spur of the moment.
LOADING THE MAPS INTO YOUR POCKET PC
The Pharos system comes with 1 install CD containing the software, and 3 separate CD's full of maps (Northeast, Southeast and West regions of the good old USA). A lot bigger than MS Streets & Trips for example. The maps look better too. But gosh are they big. Since the GPS receiver takes up the CF slot, you load the maps onto an SD (Secure Digital) card that fits in the other slot. To give you some idea, a 128 MB SD card is big enough to store maps of all the New England states. Or big enough for my trip from New Hampshire to Rochester, NY. The CD's break the USA map into 326 chunks of varyious sizes between about 5-15 MB of memory each. Around town or in a metropolitan regiond (for example Boston, Mass to Lowell, Mass is all on one map) you just need to load one. For a road trip of say 450 miles you need to load 8-10 maps onto your pocket PC. The MapViewer software that runs on your desktop PC helps you a lot with this process. There are three basic ways to search which maps to load. To search for maps you can
1. enter a city name or zipcode
2. enter a city name/zipcode plus a distance: for example select all maps needed to cover within 300 miles of Boston
3. You can draw a rectangle on the US map with your mouse and it will select all the maps in that rectangle.
Once you have the right set of maps you click on transfer maps to your Pocket PC and it copies them right onto the SD card of your PC. Works fine. There was one bug on the transfer to Pocket PC because I was running the newest 3.7 version of MS ActiveSync but they have a simple fix for it on the www.pharosgps.com web page.
PLAN YOUR ROUTE ... AND GO
Let's say you copy a dozen maps onto the memory card of your Dell Axim. Now to make plan a trip on your Ostia software, you start up Ostia and load one or more map files. Ostia can load up to 10 maps at a time. For my trip to Rochester I think it took up 8 maps.
Now let me explain something if this is a little confusing. You can copy as many maps onto your Pocket PC as it's little memory card will hold. But the Ostia software can only work with 10 of them at a time. Got it?
Once you have loaded the maps you just tell it where you want to go. Either by typing in the street address or else by clicking on one of the names in your address book, or picking from a list of recent destinations. Then you click on New Route and it figures out your directions and you are off and running it's that easy.
Starting with Ostia 6.0 you can now download points of interest from the internet and save them to your map. Then you can click on the name of the restaurant and it will route you there. Slick. This new feature resolves one of my earlier complaints with Ostia 5.0.
You can be driving somewhere and at any time enter a different destination and it will reroute you there. You can also add what are called waypoints, which you can think of as stops along the way, and it remembers all of them. You can have it keep a record of your travels.
Another cool feature is you can bring up a non-map screen that tells you your current latitude, longitude, altitude, current time, speed & direction. In other words your position and bearing.
SOME OTHER TIDBITS ON THE PHAROS GPS
When you start up Ostia there is a red sour face at the bottom of the screen. It is telling you to turn on or enable the GPS, using a menu. When you do, it switches to a yellow neutral face, that tells you the GPS receiver is looking for satellites. It takes a minute or two when you first start up. I recommend do it in the house before you get in the car then you're not waiting for it. When it finds the GPS satellites it turns into a green happy face. Now it knows your position and can take you anywhere.
IN CLOSING...
I am thoroughly satisfied with both the price and performance of my Pharos CF GPS system.
Recommended:
Yes
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