Pharos PF002 GPS Compact Flash Mounted Pharos Ostia Mapping Software

I love this thing!I hated PDAs... Had no use for the things, until this little gem came along. Pop it in, load up some maps and you've got a pretty sophisticated GPS in your pocket. Now my PDA is always by my side.It took a little practice getting used to it, but once I did, I started finding my way to and from places I never would've found before. I drove down to Atlanta and spent nearly a month in unfamiliar roads, but I never got lost.One of the great things about it is that it's integrated with the Contact Manager (which gets synched by the PDA software with Outlook and AOL contacts), so you can find anyone in your contact list.Here are a few things you should know:1. Make sure your PDA has TWO memory slots. One Compact Flash for the Pharos, and the other for you to place a traditional memory card. In my case, my PDA has a second SD memory slot which I keep a 256MB card in that has maps for about 3 states that I travel to.2. Invest in the optional car kit. It gives you: a) A car power cord so your unit stays on, for your trip without losing power (it also charges your PDA). b) A cool little holder to hang your PDA on your air conditioning vents so it stays put when you drive. c) An external antenna to give you a stronger signal. In my case I generally don't use it.3. Practice for a bit on familiar turf. You need to know how to re-route yourself in a pinch if you make an incorrect turn. I found that the routing was generally pretty accurate, but often it doesn't have North/South/East/West designations, so it may just say "highway exit ahead", when in fact there is a fork in the exit giving you an East/West choice... so you are forced to look at the screen and make a guess as to which one to pick.

I bought a car kit about a month ago. It includes the device, antenna, PocketPC holder,the car charger ,and the software. The device itself seems to be fine so far. The car charger is not compatible with my Pocket PC (despite it says "IPAQ compatible") so I had to buy my own charger. The software is EXTREMELY bad. First of all, the user interface is not intuitive at all, I am not a beginner ( in fact, I am a programmer myself ) but after a month I still do not understand the logic behind their user interface. AND user interface IS very important, because if you are driving alone, you are supposed to look at the road and not spending time trying to figure out why this damn thing does not do what you want it to. Second thing, I go insde a tunnel - the picture (map) is gone suddenly. It is very annoying (what if I need to know the name of the street or exit at the next intersection?) but I can handle that, what is really bad is that if the tunnel is long enough you will get a BIG message (something about not being able to get a signal from GPS receiver) and a tiny button OK. Now try to press this button at 65 mph and not crash into something. What are they thinking about? Okay, I finally hit the button, and what do I see??? The route is cleared and I have to retype the address again. Third thing, it is always so slow, it is quicker to open a paper map and get the information from there. I can not tell you how many times I was frustrated by not being able to make this software work properly. I do not want any of this stress while I am driving. Yesterday if erased all information from my SD card. I am giving up. I am looking for other software and I am SO SORRY I got this device and the software. DO NOT BUY IF YOU WANT TO AVOID CAR ACCIDENT!!! May be the device itself is fine, I tried it with other software (which is not free at all) and it worked ok, I did not have a chance to test thoroughly yet. I will definitely have to switch to other software, I do not want any road accidents.

The gps device is wonderful. Very accurate, fast, etc. Much better than a lot of those bigger garmin street pilots, etc.The software, however, blows. I ended up selling this software after I got it and instead buying Routis software, which is much better, though not perfect.So my suggestion--buy the device, search around for different software. You're just going to get ripped off if you buy the software, and then be very disatisfied.