Pharos Sciences, a global positioning and location device provider, has recently announced its Traveler 137, a Windows Mobile smart piece of tech that features a tri-band radio and the company's new Pay As You Go map access service.

The new Traveler 137 is manufactured by the Taiwanese ODM Inventec. Supported frequency standards include quad-band GSM and tri-band HSPA on the 1700, 1900, and 2100 MHz bands, provided that this would come as the first non-T-Mobile-developed device that includes 3G support on the 1700 MHz band in the US. Moreover, it might also work on AT&T’s 3G network, considering the fact that the carrier is going through a rebanding process.

The new device comes with a 3.5-inch WQVGA touchscreen display, a 3.0-megapixel camera with video recorder, complemented by a front mounted VGA camera meant to allow users to make video calls. Other features include the capability of providing turn by turn directions with A-GPS support, FM radio with RDS support, Bluetooth 2.1 with stereo audio support, a 3.5mm headphone jack, Wi-Fi radio, not to mention the microSDHC expansion slot.

The Traveler 137 Windows Mobile device is the first to offer customers the Smart Navigator Pay-As-You-Go GPS Navigation service, which enables users to download maps on the device so as to use them in areas where the coverage is weak or totally lacking.

The service provides access to US maps as well as other ones that can be acquired on a pay-as-you-go basis. According to the company, the available maps include areas as Canada, Western Europe and Eastern Europe on a daily ($1.99/day), weekly ($4.99/week), monthly ($6.99/month) or yearly ($49.99/year) tier. Also, there will be future maps for China, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, and Brazil among other countries.

Pharos Sciences announced that the new Traveler 137 smart device would become available during this quarter with a price tag of $599.99.