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A $99 PDA will store contact info for your friends, family members, and colleagues, and datebook entries for appointments and meetings. But if you're on the road and need help finding that meeting or hotel, a good PDA with a built-in Global Positioning System receiver and software can come in handy--and if you want to check your e-mail, one with Wi-Fi is even more useful.

The Pharos Traveler GPS 525, a Windows Mobile Pocket PC with a built-in GPS receiver and Wi-Fi adapter, is the first device I've seen that offers all this. But its odd usability and performance glitches make me hesitate to recommend that you spend the $600 it costs.

The price isn't out of line for what you get, which is one reason that I really wanted to like the Traveler GPS 525. It racks up huge cute points for its diminutive size (4.3 by 2.3 by 0.7 inches) and exceptionally light weight (4.4 ounces with batteries). And its full complement of wireless support, including Bluetooth as well as Wi-Fi, is icing on the cake.

The Traveler GPS 525 runs Microsoft Windows Mobile 5.0 and has all the usual Windows Mobile Office apps. In addition to the connectivity hardware, you get an SDIO slot, a 512MB Secure Digital Card with maps of the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas (maps for the rest of the U.S. are provided on CD), a USB SD Card adapter for moving maps between the card and your PC (you might want to free up space on the card for music, for example), 65MB of RAM and 128MB of ROM, and a handsome 240-by-320 display with 65,000 colors.

Pharos ships the device with pretty much everything you need for a PDA that's going to double as an in-car navigation system. There's a cigarette-lighter charger, a cradle, and a gooseneck suction mount for the windshield--which I recently learned is illegal in California. We Golden State drivers are supposed to put these things on the dashboard.

To help you make the most of the Wi-Fi, Pharos has preloaded the Windows Mobile version of Skype's Voice over IP software and thrown in an earbud headset, so you can make phone calls. The calls are free to other Skype clients, but you must get a paid Skype plan to reach regular landlines.

Slow Starter

Using the Traveler GPS 525 is different from admiring its specs. For starters, its GPS performance was very uneven. It's not uncommon for a GPS receiver to have difficulty orienting itself when you first fire it up in a new location, but my shipping unit had serious problems acquiring signals several times. One day, it never was able to get a fix at all during my three-block walk to work in downtown San Francisco. After I rebooted the device, things seemed to improve.

That brings me to Pharos's Ostia GPS mapping software, which had some odd quirks. It's customizable to a fault. The options screen has a slew of settings you can adjust, but the default choices for many--including key settings such as map view and orientation--seemed unfortunate at best. Someone new to GPS navigation would probably find it difficult to find the options screen from the default setup, much less figure out which options they wanted.

In fairness, Pharos does provide a good printed manual--but I'd have preferred a easier-to-use default interface. I discovered late in the testing process that you get a choice of interfaces, but I don't understand why Pharos didn't default to the more traditional one with graphical buttons and easily accessible menu items.

Missed and Missing Streets

I also found some curious artifacts in the map data for San Francisco (I didn't try maps from other parts of the country). At one point, while I was driving on a street a few blocks from my home, the map showed no street at all--although it had the ones parallel to it. The street has existed at least as long as I've lived here, which will be ten years in May, so I know it's not a new roadway.

Also, in a couple of instances, the routing software seemed to think I wasn't on any street at all--particularly if I missed a turn mid-route. When this happened it sometimes tried to reroute me, but several times it simply gave up trying to get me to my destination. Interestingly, I could often see the destination marker on the map after this happened: Apparently the GPS knew I was near my end point but the software was through trying to help me.

Not all trips went badly; the software usually did get me where I wanted to go. In general, though, I noticed that the maps lagged behind the GPS in orientation. When I made a turn, the position indicator kept up well enough, showing where I was on the street. But the map itself took 15 to 20 seconds to change its orientation, even though I had it set to always show what I was seeing (you can also choose to keep North on top).

Another strange thing: While I had set the software to provide directions in miles, the spoken directions invariably warned me when a turn was coming up in "half a kilometer." Perhaps I missed a separate setting for voice guidance, but I don't know why the voice wouldn't automatically agree with the graphical and text option for distance measurement. And in general, the voice prompts could have been more precise in alerting me to the exact intersection where a turn was required.

Wi-Fi and Skype

Pharos's Wi-Fi receiver works fine, but again, the software needs work. I couldn't easily tell what network I was connected to or get to the list of available Wi-Fi networks. At one point, when I mistakenly ended up on the screen for setting up a network I had already configured, I couldn't see a way to cancel the process.

Skype's software, however, was a joy to use. I simply entered my user name and password, and was immediately presented with my personal contact list, showing who was online. It took only moments to complete a call to a colleague in Boston. True, the voice quality wasn't up to the outstanding audio we enjoy on PC-to-PC calls, but it was perfectly usable.

If you were reasonably confident that you would spend most of your day within range of a usable Wi-Fi hotspot, you could probably save some money by getting a Skype plan and paying for hotspot access rather paying a cellular provider for a high-speed voice and data plan. Also, you'd get the benefit of Wi-Fi speed for e-mail and Web access.

So that's the scoop on the Pharos Traveler GPS 525. If you want GPS and Wi-Fi in one handheld, there's not much competition. I just wish the GPS and mapping features worked a bit better.

But speaking of moving around, this will be my last PDA Pundit. This won't be my last PC World column, or my last PDA review, I suspect: I'm going to be writing our Consumer Watch column. My first effort will appear in the June issue; I hope you will check it out.