Harman Kardon GPS-500 Widescreen Pocket GPS Navigator, MP3 Player, and Video Player with Maps for North America

This personal travel assistant has a super bright, sunlight-readable, 4-inch widescreen with highly accurate 2D and 3D navigation capabilities. See more pictures: back - right side - left side

Creating a device that does more than one or two things well has proved elusive for device manufacturers. So-called "convergence" devices--devices that provide multimedia, communication, and navigation functions, for instance--are just beginning to mature into products worth buying. One such product is the Harman Kardon GPS-500, which pulls an admirable hat trick by combining above average music and video playback with a top notch GPS navigation experience.

Granted, you don't get some top shelf features like Bluetooth integration, text-to-speech address announcements, or wireless traffic reports, but Harman Kardon has wisely stuck with basics and polished them into an experience that, apart from a few software problems we encountered on our pre-production model, doesn't fail to disappoint.

Turn-by-turn directions and navigation prompts appear as needed, even during music playback.

Enjoy your favorite music in your car--or on the couch. The unit supports MP3, AAC, and WMA audio formats.

The SD card slot supports up to 4GB, enough room for hours of video.

Design
The GPS-500 is solidly built--something we expect from Harman Kardon--and it instills a sense of confidence that it can survive the bumps of bruises that come with the mobile lifestyle. Measuring approximately 4.5 inches wide by 3.5 inches high, and a little over half an inch thick, the device is only a little chunkier than your average PDA or Smartphone. The clean lines of the GPS-500 are enhanced by a complete lack of buttons; all interaction with the device happens between the touchscreen and your finger. In the interest of simplicity, there is not even a stylus that can fall to the floor and roll under the seat of your car.

The only button you'll find on the device is the recessed power button on the top, right next to the SD card slot. The slot accepts cards with up to 4 GB of capacity. There's also a small jog wheel on the right side for volume and display brightness control. Below this dial you'll also find a mini-USB port that serves double duty for both charging and PC-to-device data transfers, as well as a standard 3.5-millimeter headphone jack. Meanwhile, you'll find a pinhole reset button on the bottom, as well as a hold switch on the left side for deactivating the touchscreen. Lastly, the back of the unit sports a small audio speaker and a port for an optional GPS signal booster antenna.

Setup and Interface
Setup is as easy as turning the device on, since it comes loaded with maps of the U.S. and Canada. On first bootup, choose from English, Spanish, or French language options for the spoken directions and interface menus.

Interacting with the GPS-500's touchscreen is delightfully intuitive and reliable; there's really no need for a stylus or navigation buttons, which simplifies things on the road. The division of the main interface into four main quadrants is a helpful touch, and it's refreshing to see manufacturers moving away from awkward icon-based menus. Instead of drilling down through lists of icons, all of the GPS-500's options are presented on simple, color-coded shapes. That said, we were a little puzzled by the use of the "Source" menu key, which takes the user back to the main menu from any point in the interface. It's a useful feature, but why not call this the "Home" button instead?

The screen itself is sharp and clear, offering great resolution and clarity in all driving conditions. The map screen is a sight to behold, offering delightfully crisp 3D images, as well as excellent responsiveness when zoomed and panned. Likewise, the interfaces for music and video playback are pleasantly uncluttered, responsive, and well thought-out. One problem in our unit, though, was the lack of a sleep mode. The device's screen will stay on at full illumination when it's left idle--even when running on battery power. There's also no sleep button on the device.

The GPS-500 provides audible commands for turns, which is very useful for anticipating upcoming maneuvers. As mentioned, though, the device does not provide text-to-speech capabilities for reading the names of locations or upcoming addresses.

Navigation
The main purpose of any car GPS device is to take you reliably from point A to B. Here the GPS-500 performs nicely indeed, providing several options for finding your destination. To get going you can select either a street address, a specific point of interest such as a gas station or restaurant, a recent or saved destination, a postal code, or an intersection (if you're not sure of the exact address). To speed up text entry, the unit employs an intelligent auto-completion feature that displays only the letters that spell an item in its database. This greatly reduces the letters from which you have to choose to tell it where you want to go.

Accurate, detailed 3D navigation, and turn-by-turn directions. View larger.

Use the unit's touch screen to enter address locations. View larger.

An intuitive menu lets you switch quickly between music, video, and navigation options. View larger.

Once it knows where you are headed, the device offers you the choice of shortest distance or most use of freeways or other high-speed arterials. You'll also find a trip planner that lets you lay out and save multiple destinations, as well as avoidance choices for routing your trip away from borders, toll roads, unpaved roads, ferries, and more. If you take a wrong turn or need to use a detour, the GPS-500 will automatically re-route you and get you back on your way.

Preloaded maps of the U.S. and Canada help you quickly plan your trip. All you have to do is drive. See route planning details.

And how did the GPS-500 perform out on the road? In a word, admirably. Apart from a few lags and interface hiccups that (we hope) can be attributed to our pre-production software, the responsiveness of the device, combined with the excellent user interface, are what make it a joy to use. Add that to extremely fast and accurate GPS signal processing, and you've got a recipe for navigation nirvana. In most cases, the device decided on logical and efficient routes, too--something that can't be said of all GPS devices out there. This is likely the result of using accurate and up-to-date mapping data.

Multimedia
The GPS-500 strives to be much more than just another GPS device in a crowded market, and that's likely why Harman Kardon has polished the multimedia features of the device so well. With support for MP3 and WMA music files, the music player has a refreshingly intuitive user interface and good sound quality. It's a cinch to browse music on your SD card by artist, album, genre, playlist, and song. Another nice touch is that you can keep the music playing while the unit is in navigation mode.

Video playback is equally straightforward. The device recognizes WMV9 or MPEG-4 AVI video files and presents them in a scrolling list. Press a title and you're off in movie land, complete with smooth framerates and minimal jitters during high-action sequences. We did encounter a format incompatibility with an AVI file encoded in the DIVX format. Attempting to play the file freaked the GPS-500 out, and a hard reset was required. Harman Kardon is very clear about which file formats are supported, but many folks might inadvertantly attempt to play a DIVX-encoded AVI instead of an MPEG-4 AVI. Broader format support would be a welcome addition.

To ease some of the pain of getting your movies and TV shows into the right format for the GPS-500, Harman Kardon provides a brief guide for Windows Media Player users. Mac users will have to use third-party media encoders to prepare their videos for the GPS-500. Lastly, battery life when playing back videos was surprisingly good. After a two-hour movie the GPS-500 was only down to a 40 percent charge.

Pros

• Excellent user interface
• Fast, accurate GPS performance; good mapping capabilities
• Polished, user-friendly music and video playback

Cons

• Minor lag during some operations
• Limited video format compatibility
• No sleep or low power standby function

What's in the Box
GPS-500, car charger, wall charger, USB cable, fold-flat mounting bracket, plastic disc for dash mount, adhesive pad for plastic disc, alcohol cleaning pad for dash surface, quick-start guide, and carrying case.

Product Description

portable GPS satellite navigation unit with built-in antenna * includes car and home power adapters, USB cable, carrying case, and rechargeable battery with up to 4 hours of life * 4" color (480 x 272 pixels) touchscreen control * 3 million points of interest * SD card slot (supports up to 4GB) *