Product Description

The Pharos Drive GPS 250 makes it easy to keep your eyes on the road when looking for a specific address with voice prompts and turn-by-turn spoken instructions that include name of the street or highway (text-to-speech technology). The large 4.3" color touch screen LCD clearly displays the preloaded U.S. and Canada street level maps and navigation routing. Tech Support Hotline: 1-888-PHAROS-8

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46211 in Consumer Electronics
• Brand: Pharos
• Model: PDR250
• Dimensions: 3.50" h x 6.50" w x 6.50" l, 1.70 pounds

Features

• Large 4.3" TFT LCD with 16.7 million colors
• Fast route calculation by 32-bit CPU processor
• Text-To-Speech; turn-by-turn directions with voice prompts announcing the street name
• Entire US and Canadian maps; NAVTEQ ON BOARD Millions of POI's; search nearby, near destination, or in a city
• Built-in ultra sensitive 20-channel SiRFStarII GPS for fast and accurate positioning

Customer Reviews

Nice Unit... Works as Advertised
If Pharos offered a better website with updates available for this unit, I would give it 5 stars. The slightly computerized voice does not know how to pronounce many street names so they sound strange. Screen is beautiful and mapping seems more accurate than my Garmin I-3. (But the Garmin has a much better voice). I have used GPS units of various types for about 15 years and this is the best so far for the price. You can test a route before you set out, in real time, to see how accurate it is... nice feature. Adding addresses to the address book is cumbersome and after many hours of playing with the unit, I still have not figured out how to save addresses easily. That is really the only big negative, but considering all the features and accuracy of routing, it is a keeper. It has Navteq maps and they tend to be quite accurate.

Not bad for the price but I sold mine.
It's a nice unit especially with the black piano finish and the bright, clear 4.3" screen. The window mount is very strong but does require a little effort to lock it in place. The pronounciation of some streets was irritating since they were wrong. I got a great deal from Dell, if I get my rebate, but I sold it because of several different reasons. Here is a breakdown of the good and the bad.

Good:
Nice finish
Large 4.3" screen that is vibrant
Maps of the entire 50 US states and Canada
Long life battery
Both car and home chargers
Cloth carrying case

Bad:
Somewhat difficult to use, at least some of the functions
Adapter hole on the left side of the unit
Doesn't show speed, distance, next street/road that you need to turn on, at the same time. It also doesn't show the road that you are on and where you will go on the same screen.

Nice unit but not what I wanted.

Good basic GPS
After considering the Garmin Nuvi and Magellan Maestro, I decided that I didn't need the extra features like Bluetooth, mp3 player, FM transmitters, etc. I have taken the Pharos 250 with me on several trips now, and it does a fine job of getting me to my destination.
FYI, the Pharos 250 is exactly like the Pharos 150, except that it has a bigger screen

PROS

-very quick satellite detection: even on a cloudy day, it doesn't take more than 2 minutes to get a signal, avg time is less than a minute
-good rerouting features
-I can set my unit to automatically switch to night mode at 7pm, which makes for better viewing at nighttime
-standby mode allows me to power up really quickly
-good volume, I can hear the instructions quite clearly
-comes with a pouch for the unit, USB cable, windshield mount, car charger

CONS

-limited points of interest: It doesn't know where to find the nearest Target or McDonalds
-mechanical voice mispronounces street names
-poor global map view: whenever I want to zoom out all the way to get an overview of the city, the Pharos 250 doesn't display the major street names. I never had that problem with my friend's Garmin
-I initially did have trouble dismounting the unit from the windshield mount, but I found that if you remove it from the bottom edge first, and then pull down from the top edge, you would have an easier time removing it.