Pharos Traveler GPS 525

Apparently, it’s not enough to add GPS navigation to a PDA anymore. The deceptively tiny Pharos Traveler GPS 525 includes not one, not two, but three radios: Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and GPS. Want to travel light? Leave your mobile phone at home and use Skype instead, which comes bundled with the device.

The Traveler GPS 525 is refreshingly smart and powerful. Arriving after a parade of me-too GPS PDAs, Pharos really put some thought into what would make a good navigation device. It starts with a solid bedrock of Windows Mobile 5.0 with 64MB of SDRAM. The 300-MHz processor is on the low end these days, but the device was fast enough most of the time. It has an infrared port on the side near a digital voice recorder button, a five-way navigation stick, and four quick-access buttons. The 2.8-inch QVGA screen may not be the biggest on the block, but it’s amazingly bright and easy to read (even outdoors).

On the navigation front, the first thing you’ll notice is that Pharos doesn’t defeat the GPS 525’s tiny footprint by adding a bulky foldout antenna. The GPS antenna is completely contained in the small frame of the PDA. Does that affect the system’s performance? Not at all. Acquiring a satellite lock took about 90 seconds, and the GPS 525 kept us locked onto the right roads during navigation in and around the Seattle area. It even kept a solid lock indoors when many other GPS receivers we’ve tested would simply lose the satellite connection.

You’ll find Ostia to be among the better choices when it comes to GPS software, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing on this device. Sometimes GPS companies seem to try to outdo one another with terrible map-loading packages, and Ostia is no exception. You can load maps directly onto a memory card using the included SD Card and SD Card reader or load maps directly from the CD to the Pocket PC, but either way, the CD should not ask which CD drive contains the maps while it’s installing the software. Another glitch occurred whenever we tried to switch maps on the GPS 525: Ostia simply displayed an error message. To change maps, we had to reset the device.

Aside from these annoyances, using the GPS 525 is a joy. You can choose from various map views (like overhead and 3D), navigate to addresses, intersections, and points of interest, and even navigate directly to an address from Outlook. You can add up to ten intermediate stops to any route and save a home destination and a slew of favorites.

Whenever you’re using a PDA as a navigation tool, a bigger screen is always better than a small one, so we’d prefer more real estate than the GPS 525 offers. That being said, this device makes good use of what’s there. You can easily switch among the map, a road diagram with turn guidance, and a split screen showing both views.

The GPS 525 features some unexpected goodies, like the ability to record your own voice prompts if you don’t like the default female voice, as well as navigate the return trip with a click. The Ostia software offers a handful of Smart Navigator subscription services that leverage the GPS 525’s wireless capabilities to download local maps, information on points of interest, and real-time traffic information.

Everything you need is in the box. Pharos includes a soft carrying case, car mounting hardware, and a car power adapter. The GPS 525 comes with a big 512MB SD Card, already loaded with maps for 50 major cities. However, there’s no docking cradle; the mini-USB port plugs into your PC or the AC adapter but not both at once. Nonetheless, this is an impressive GPS-enabled PDA that gets almost everything right.