( 11 reviews )
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Posted: Jun 28 2009
Bought Pharos Trips & Pics a little over a year ago. Paid around $90.00 for it. Never got it to work on my desktop or laptop. Tried to work with Pharos tecs. Never got a response. The long & short of it is I could never get it to work as advertized. Simply put, it's a piece of JUNK. This is only my opinion, but don't waste your money.
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Posted: Jan 22 2009
Pros: * Very accurate GPS receiver. * "Trips and Pics" software is very flexible when used in "Classic mode". * Data can be exported into GPX format, which can then be used to set in combination with open-source GeoSetter to geotag both RAW, DNG, and JPEG photos according to metadata. * Easy export to Google Earth is very cool. * Very simple operation (only an on / off switch on device). * Easy to use for novices and flexible enough for power users. Cons * Small amount of memory, probably no more than 8 MB, which limits the devices recording potential when away from PC to dump data. Memory is cheap nowadays. It feels like could have included 32x more memory (256 MB) for $1 more. * Battery docks are expensive when bought directly from Pharos, so don't plan on being away from a charger if you plan to use it for 24+ hours unless you want to pony up the cash. * Built-in JPEG geotagging support is lame. It ignores any timestamp metadata and instead just syncs up with the file create date. Took me a while to figure that out. Might work fine for novice users, but annoyed me. Use GeoSetter instead. * Doesn't come with drivers for Vista x64. Annoying. Took me 30 minutes to find drivers. I feel like this little device got overlooked in the market. I got one for Christmas this year, and it's easily the best gift I've received in a while. It's so much fun to take it with me when I travel or go out to take pics. It's very well priced too in my opinion. My gripes aren't really show stoppers for me, so overall, I highly recommend it.
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Posted: Jan 14 2009
This is for Windows machines only. It doesn't work on a mac. Their downloadable "mac os x driver" is an .exe file that might run on some version of windows but it's jibberish to a mac with OS 10.5. I would be happy to just download raw data, but that's not possible. And Google Earth no longer supports gps unless you get Google Earth Pro, which means you need to pay more $$ to subscribe to that. If you search for "macintosh" or "mac" or "os x" on their website, you'll find zero entries. Mac users don't exist to these people. What's the solution? The GiSTEQ website describes how to get their GPS unit to work with your mac: find a windows machine and go through about 15 steps, then get a virtual vista machine going on your mac, and go through about 15 more steps, then go back to the regular mac os and in 15 more steps you're finished. maybe. Are they kidding? That's like saying you can read Chinese, just find a guy who speaks it, get him to translate, and read what he wrote for you. It looks like the iphone might be the only real gps option for mac users, thanks to lack of interest by other manufacturers, who frankly don't deserve our business if they can't be bothered to make their gadgets work for us.
