Review: Pharos GPS Phone 600 smartphone
Design:
The Pharos GPS Phone 600 is a relatively slim block of brushed metal with a large touch-screen face. Physically, it looks similar to the Cingular 8525, though without the slide-out keyboard it manages to be about a quarter-inch thinner. The design suffers from a few miscues that will stymie users familiar with the Pocket PC variety of Windows Mobile, or smartphones in general. First of all, the stylus slots into the bottom of the phone, which is neither here nor there except that the stylus is completely blocked when the Pharos is holstered into its car charger. At the top of the phone are buttons marked with a satellite for GPS, and a poorly placed “Home” button that actually functions as the Windows Mobile “OK” button. At the bottom are two soft keys between the “send” and “end” keys, though because the soft keys are placed too close to the middle of the screen, they rarely line up with the menu function to which they correspond.
Calling - Very good
The Pharos GPS Phone 600 comes unlocked, so we popped in our Cingular SIM for GSM coverage. Generally, reception was very good, up to four bars in lower Manhattan and Northern Jersey. Call quality was average, with a slight tunnel effect in some areas while we traveled, but calls sounded clean for the most part. The phone features a bevy of calling options, including Bluetooth, a fairly loud speakerphone and speaker-independent voice dialing. The robust address book is buoyed by the venerable Microsoft Outlook, which allows for ActiveSync syncing with your desktop and live, while-you-type searching. Conference calling functions similarly to other Windows Mobile PPC phones, which is to say it requires more menu drilling than we’d like, but otherwise works fine. Without Wi-Fi, GPS, or Bluetooth turned on, we got about four and a half hours of talk time, which is pretty good, only a half hour shy of what Pharos promises.
Source and more info: infosyncworld