Routing the Competition... a review of Pharos' iGPS-BT and Ostia 6.0.2.51

[Doug Raeburn]

Originally Posted by nirav28

First..Why is the receiver a seperate unit if it doesn't hold the battery? Can the receiver act as a stand alone unit by plugging in a usb cable or something? such as wired GPS receiver?

There's a couple of reasons that I can think of. First, you can buy a second dock and battery so it can be charged while you're using the other one. Convenient for long trips. But you can also connect it to the DC adaptor if you have only one battery. You can switch between docks in seconds.

Second, the modularity of the receiver portion is an advantage from both a design/manufacturing perspective and also potentially from an end user standpoint. Pharos can just design a variety of modules for the modular receiver to plug into, so if they want to design a unit with heavier duty battery capacity, or even a free standing unit with a display ala Garmin and Magellan, or a marine unit, etc., they already have a large portion of the design completed.

Pharos already sells a CompactFlash adaptor for this GPS, so the end user can adapt it for different hardware configurations without having to buy the GPS receiver part over again.

Second..Not sure why Pharos decided to use a special battery instead of your off-the self rechargeble AA or AAA..Any one know the type of battery thats in there? I would hate to go hunting for a battery when its life is up.

It's a 720mAh Li-Polymer battery with a claimed 6 hour life, so I would guess the decision was guided by high capacity and small size as compared to using off-the-shelf batteries. Among modern portable electronic devices (PDAs, cell phones, cameras, etc.), this is becoming pretty much standard practice. You may or may not like it, but it seems to be the direction of the various portable electronics industries.

Third..Is it NMEA compatible? Can any NMEA compatible mapping app or software work with it? Lets say I want to use TomTom or mapopolis.

It is NMEA compatible... I already tested it with Destinator 3 and it works just fine. In fact, the GPS hardware is available without software if you prefer to use another software package.

[Doug Raeburn]

Originally Posted by nirav28

First..Why is the receiver a seperate unit if it doesn't hold the battery? Can the receiver act as a stand alone unit by plugging in a usb cable or something? such as wired GPS receiver?

There's a couple of reasons that I can think of. First, you can buy a second dock and battery so it can be charged while you're using the other one. Convenient for long trips. But you can also connect it to the DC adaptor if you have only one battery. You can switch between docks in seconds.

Second, the modularity of the receiver portion is an advantage from both a design/manufacturing perspective and also potentially from an end user standpoint. Pharos can just design a variety of modules for the modular receiver to plug into, so if they want to design a unit with heavier duty battery capacity, or even a free standing unit with a display ala Garmin and Magellan, or a marine unit, etc., they already have a large portion of the design completed.

Pharos already sells a CompactFlash adaptor for this GPS, so the end user can adapt it for different hardware configurations without having to buy the GPS receiver part over again.

Second..Not sure why Pharos decided to use a special battery instead of your off-the self rechargeble AA or AAA..Any one know the type of battery thats in there? I would hate to go hunting for a battery when its life is up.

It's a 720mAh Li-Polymer battery with a claimed 6 hour life, so I would guess the decision was guided by high capacity and small size as compared to using off-the-shelf batteries. Among modern portable electronic devices (PDAs, cell phones, cameras, etc.), this is becoming pretty much standard practice. You may or may not like it, but it seems to be the direction of the various portable electronics industries.

Third..Is it NMEA compatible? Can any NMEA compatible mapping app or software work with it? Lets say I want to use TomTom or mapopolis.

It is NMEA compatible... I already tested it with Destinator 3 and it works just fine. In fact, the GPS hardware is available without software if you prefer to use another software package.

[bibap]

Pharos is a fairly primitive program compared to Routis/iGuidance, Mapopolis, CoPilot PocketMap Navigator or TomTom. All these programs offer more features and options and Routis, Mapopolis and PocketMap are about the same price. CoPilot has the added benefit that it is the only one that can do really long-distance routing without running into memory problems. I have seen a lot of postings, however, saying that its maps have accuracy problems.

Neverthless, between Ostia and CoPilot I would choose CoPilot.

[Doug Raeburn]

Originally Posted by bibap

Pharos is a fairly primitive program compared to Routis/iGuidance, Mapopolis, CoPilot PocketMap Navigator or TomTom. All these programs offer more features and options and Routis, Mapopolis and PocketMap are about the same price. CoPilot has the added benefit that it is the only one that can do really long-distance routing without running into memory problems. I have seen a lot of postings, however, saying that its maps have accuracy problems.

Neverthless, between Ostia and CoPilot I would choose CoPilot.

Well, I haven't experienced any of the other programs that you mentioned, but Ostia held up very well in comparison to SmartST and Destinator 2. So either all 3 of these programs are primitive or Ostia's latest release is a major improvement.

[dequardo]

Doug,
An excellent review. (I'm in Waukesha and eat at Peking house :-)

I'm troubled by the fact that the pgm can not be loaded onto a SD card. For me that would be a non-starter as I won't give up 1MB of RAM willingly. Also the map sizes seem huge. WI in iGuidance is 40MB.

I've seen many negative reviews of Ostia software previously and it appears they are close to getting things right now.

FWIW I just got a CF GPS and iGuidance for my 2215 and it worked flawlessly for a trip to Bloomington, IL last week.

If you want to compare respective routing to like addresses between the two programs give me a shout.

TIA

Mike DeQuardo

[Jerr123]

Doug,

Thanks for the review...

I recently purchased the iGPS-BT, and am fairly happy with it, outside of it's range. I cannot connect to it with my HP 2215 unless I am within 4ft of the iGPS-BT, and it will maintain a connect up to about 8ft from the iGPS-BT.

Did you do any range tests? I'm not sure I just got a bad unit or if this low range is typical...

Thanks,
Jerry

[klinux]

Originally Posted by bibap

Pharos is a fairly primitive program compared to Routis/iGuidance, Mapopolis, CoPilot PocketMap Navigator or TomTom. All these programs offer more features and options and Routis, Mapopolis and PocketMap are about the same price. CoPilot has the added benefit that it is the only one that can do really long-distance routing without running into memory problems. I have seen a lot of postings, however, saying that its maps have accuracy problems.

Neverthless, between Ostia and CoPilot I would choose CoPilot.

Late to the game but I would also add my own experience that Routis software is superior to Pharos'. FWIW, I am currently using a Pharos CF GPS card.

[Ripper014]

Originally Posted by Jerr123

Doug,

Thanks for the review...

I recently purchased the iGPS-BT, and am fairly happy with it, outside of it's range. I cannot connect to it with my HP 2215 unless I am within 4ft of the iGPS-BT, and it will maintain a connect up to about 8ft from the iGPS-BT.

Did you do any range tests? I'm not sure I just got a bad unit or if this low range is typical...

Thanks,
Jerry

I have not tested the full range of my Pharos BT unit... but I would say the range is at least 15 feet with my Hp2210. I no longer have the Hp2210 (gave it to the girlfriend)... but getting it to connect to my Toshiba e830 was a real issue.

Overall I like the design of the unit... even if it is pricey...

[jutae]

I use this receiver with TomTom Navigator. In general it works great. I have an Akron Powered PDA Mount so battery life isn't an issue as it allows me to charge both my Axim 50v and pharos receiver. My problem is the memory leak that Dell hasn't fixed when using bluetooth. After about 45 minutes my Dell locks up and I have to do a soft reset. Not fun if you do not noticed it's locked up and you miss an important turn. Come on Dell!!!