Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Offering the same powerful and easy to use navigation experience on a smaller, more portable device, the Drive GPS 150 is perfect for the budget minded customer. Measuring just 3.94 inch long, the Drive GPS 150 is ideal for journey in car or on foot. The navigation software provides a pedestrian mode that plots routes with pedestrian options and preferences in mind.

'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 pink.

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 pink, but it's also available in black 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









Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours

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Rating: - good price for an so-so GPS
I bought the Pharos's 150 because of its low price and the walk mode. It worked well for me for the first time. The second time I used it, it had an "desination.exe" failure and told me to shut if off. I did and was able to enter the address again. But it turned itself off after about 20 min while I was on the way to a new place. The unit would not turn on and I ended up spending 40 min more to ask around for directions and getting lost many times in light rain. When I got home, I charged it overnight and it still would not turn on. I called customer service and was told to reset the unit and it turned on. I was told that this happened because it was a new unit and once it had been used for a while, this would not happen. I never expected new things to not work well, my mistake!!! I used it for a third time and everything is fine. It does need 2-3 min to find the GPS signal (feels like 10 min). So I gave it a 3-star because you get what you pay for. While it works, it is good enough for me.

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Rating: - Works ok but..
I've used the Pharos 150 for about a month now and its ok but does have some annoying things about it. First you have to depress and hold the power button for 30 to 45 seconds and sometimes longer before it will boots up. The screen is readable but not very bright. The screen is almost invisible with almost any amount of sunlight on it. Conversely at night it nearly blinds you even with "night colored " maps. One thing I find very annoying is that as your speed increases it incrementally zooms out. If you depress the zoom-in button it may or may not zoom in (no rhyme or reason to it). When it does zoom in, it will remain zoomed in for only a few seconds then zooms back out. At speeds around 45 or less it behaves quite well and responds to zooming commands as one would expect. Another annoying characteristic is the sensitivity of audio click for touch screen buttons. It will click at with relatively light pressure applied although the function will not activate unless more pressure is applied to the touch button. It forces one to look at the screen to verify that the selected function did in fact activate. Another complaint is that it tends jump the map in steps rather than scroll smoothly at highway speeds. Its like the processor can't keep up with the movement of the vehicle. The good side is the maps seem to be accurate (at least as accurate as my other two vehicles that have in dash nav units). Route calculation is good but a little slower than I like. All in all, for the price, it's an ok starter unit, but for a few dollars more better portable GPS units are available. As a side note, I have a Blackberry Curve with an imbedded GPS. I downloaded Google Mobile maps (its free) and it does an equal is not better job of displaying the vehicles path in both map and satellite modes. If only the screen was a little bigger..

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Rating: - always searching for signal...
this item is always searching for a signal and I am going to return it.

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Rating: - Pharos is a winner!
I am very pleased with the Pharos. I don't have any problems with the directions at all. My daughter bought a high end GPS and always has to reset it. She constantly asks me to use mine when she is driving.

I carry it with me all of the time and it works whether I am walking or driving in an unfamiliar area. I like the fact that is also has the stick to help type the address and make selections. I feel like I am using a Palm device. I love the fact that it tells me when I am over the speed limit. I sometimes go over without knowing it and now I can correct it quicker than in the past. The user interface is easy to understand also.

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Rating: - Great value
Easy to use, easy to carry. And my wife loves the pink color. Overall, a good value.