GPS-500 portable navigation + audio + video device offers a highly intuitive and easy to use navigation device. It also offers full playback capability of music and video. All access and control is via a 4" WQVGA touchscreen (wide screen format). In navigation mode, it offers easy-to-understand spoken instructions and visuals in the the language you select (English, Spanish or French). Turn-by-turn graphics with all vital information is displayed and Maps of U.S. and Canada are built-in along with full point of interest database. The full blown MP3 player offers browsing by artist, album, genre, song or play list will display ID3 tags for Artist, title and album along with album artwork. MP3 / AAC/WMA audio formats are supported. In video player mode, the 4" high resolution WQVGA wide screen plays back hours of video and supports MPEG4 and WMV9 video formats.
Product Details
Powerful, portable device combines highly-accurate GPS navigation with robust digital audio and video playback
Turn-by-turn maps and spoken driving directions in English, French, or Spanish; complete, preloaded maps of the U.S. and Canada
4-inch widescreen touchscreen display can play video in MPEG-1/4 and WMV9 formats
Fully-featured MP3 player allows you to search by artist, album, genre, song, or playlist
Features an intuitive and easy-to-operate, color-coded menu scheme
Customer Reviews
Sleek, Slick, and Easy to Use
Review Date: April 5, 2007
Reviewer: Xander Crews, Santa Monica, CA United States
I just got this Harman kardon GPS device and thought I'd write up some of my experiences. I bought it for my dad, and it was a bit of a gamble (I was hoping this one would be easy for him to use), but I've been using it myself for the past couple of days.
Overall, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. There are two things that particularly stand out on this device. The first is the big screen. You don't realize how nice such a big screen is until you put it side by side with my dinky Garmin (half an inch goes a long way). It's big, bright, easy to read when it's all the way on your windshield, all that goodness. The second great thing is the user interface. I see the Amazon review caught this too. This is the only nav I've seen that has slick-looking menus and buttons. But more than just looking good, the really nice thing is that it's very easy to get it to do what you want, like entering an address or changing the settings. What I mean is that you don't have to travel to a big menu hierarchy or figure out what the icons mean to get anywhere, everything is just a couple of buttons away with the 'source' button. This is especially useful when you're playing music while navigating and you want to switch between the mp3 player and the map screen quickly. It's little things like that make it seem like a well thought-out product. Like, when you're in the mp3 player, it shows you the name of upcoming streets on the bar at the bottom, and when you're looking at the map it shows the title of the current song. Seems obvious, right? The design of the device is slim and fits in your pocket. It doesn't have a big fold-out antenna (which I didn't realize when I bought it), that little bump at the top left is (I think) the antenna. I was a bit worried about GPS reception, but a side-by-side with my aforementioned GPS, it was not any slower.
Here's the technical good stuff for all of you geeks out there. Like I said, GPS performance seems on par, and there's an external antenna plug if you have a roof one (haven't tried this). Routing is pretty good, if a bit slow. One thing that seems weird is that it considers all the small alleyways in my neighborhood to be streets. It's kind of strange, but not a big deal (it doesn't route me on them). There's a configuration setting for the USB connection that you can switch between Mass Storage and MTP. If you get music or videos from one of the subscription services, you can use it like a Microsoft portable player over MPT. I don't have any of these so did not try this feature out. The device has the maps for the whole US and Canada on internal storage (no SD card required), but has an SD slot that it plays mp3s and videos from. I threw some mp3s and a few of my mpeg4 avi files and it played them fine. It doesn't look like it has enough power to play videos and navigate at the same time, so the nav is paused when you're playing a movie, but you can play mp3s and navigate at the same time. Battery life is good (4-5 hours? I hadn't hit the limit since I mostly had it on the car charger), and it charges over USB (it comes with a handy USB charger that I will be using for my iPod from now on). The mount is stiff and sturdy, and you can take it out of the mount with just one hand and not really any force. It's been stuck on my windshield for about 2 days now, and doesn't look like it's coming off.
Things I didn't like include the annoying warning screen when you play a video. If you're the kind of person that is going to watch a video while driving, I don't think a warning message is going to stop you. And if you're a passenger, you don't need the warning. I wish there was a setting to disable this. The blue light on the cigarette lighter adapter is also too bright. A little duct-tape fixed this.
Overall, I'm glad I bought this thing. It has the big screen and the nice design of a GPS device that costs twice as much. More than that, my dad was able to figure out how to use it (that's saying a lot), so he will actually use it instead of just leaving it at home (which means that I won't be seeing much of it again). Great value, highly recommended.
The Harman Kardon GPS Navigation System is a really nice looking piece of electronics. It is super thin at less than an inch and is about 4.5 inches long. It has a SD card slot and its on/off button on top. There is a volume dial, headphone jack and a mini USP port that gives the GPS its power. There is a speaker and external antenna port on the back of the console. It comes complete with a suction cup mount that is compact and easily adjustable. It disconnects easily from the mount for storage in your glove box. The screen and graphics have very high quality pictures. It has a widescreen display and is one of the smallest GPS devices that does.
The Harman Kardon GPS Navigation System has a music player included along with a video player. It supports many file formats including MP3, MP4, WMA, OGG, ASF, and WAV. There is a volume setting for the music playback but even so, it is hard to hear the navigation instructions when you have the music on sometimes. It is by no means though a replacement for your car stereo system. When you do not have the music on though the navigations prompts are clear and easy to hear even on the highway. It does not have text-to-speech capabilities though.
The routing on the Harman Kardon GPS Navigation System is easy and gives you guidance throughout the procedure. It allows you to save your "home" address and "favorite" destinations. There is a turn indication on the screen and it tells you the amount of time left in the trip. One distinct feature about this model is that if you do not need to make a turn for several miles the screen zooms out giving you a 2D over view of the area you are driving in. It may not have some "bells and whistles" such as Bluetooth calling, text-to-speech, or live traffic reports but it still is a very good reasonably priced GPS perfect for someone who wants to get from point "A" to point "B" with a minimum amount of fuss.
Sleek, Slick, and Easy to Use
