Harman Kardon GPS-500 Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator, MP3 Player, and Video Player
- 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
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. Amazon.com Review
Creating a device that does more than one or two things well has proved elusive for device… More >>
Harman Kardon GPS-500 Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator, MP3 Player, and Video Player
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5 comments
Corey L. Varner on October 11, 2009 at 11:38 am
I wanted to really try this unit out before I wrote a final review. I paid $400 for the unit. I bought it mainly on the positive reviews from this site, because I have never heard of the company before. I wonder if all the positive reviews aren’t employed by the company. First, an 8 page users manual (but, you can print out more online using your own ink and paper!). As a first-time buyer, I don’t care how “obvious” the unit seems to be, there should be instructions with ANY unit. First unit had to be replaced. Customer service was ok, but it depended on who you got. With my new job, I travel through about 12 counties. I use this unit 4 days a week, and a minimum of 8 addresses each day. What really tipped it for me (to the negative) was when I was on a very, very heavily traveled business area and the first three business I put it, or try to find wasn’t in the unit! This is NOT a new area, either. Then, I read that they don’t update their maps!! What the heck? Are all the roads ever going to be built already built? How will this unit be relevant in 2 years? 1 year? Also, I followed EXACTLY the beginning instructions on setting up the unit. I put in my address. For whatever reason, the unit is about .6 miles off from my actual home location!! Also, it has taken as long as 12 minutes for the first map of the day to load. Granted, 99.8 times out of 100, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but if there is ever an emergency in a strange town, I wouldn’t want this unit! Go with a company you’ve heard of like Garmin or Tom Tom, even if the screen is a little smaller.
J. Peterson on October 11, 2009 at 12:13 pm
Easy to use. Gets you to where you need to go.
I just buy things that work… I am not going to analyze a GPS that gets me from A to B just fine. There is nothing to Analyze
Plays Music just fine plugged into my line in on my headunit.
It also plays movies.. That is an added bonus considering it costs less then the GPS-300
Just put the address or place in and move on with life.
Daniel J. Herrmann on October 11, 2009 at 2:56 pm
What a wonderful product! The graphics are great, the navigation is right on, the UPS is highly accurate. I had it up and running in my BMW in about 5 minutes. It looks great in the car too!
It even plays videos if you use a SD card.
We have a new leader of the Navigation world – see you later, Nuvi!
Kelvin Franklin on October 11, 2009 at 5:55 pm
this unit is a very good unit. it does not have any flaws as of now. the upload from Sat. is very fast and accurate. the picture quality is superb, sound quality w/built in speaker is fantastic. you can not beat this for the buck.This unit does not need a celebrity commercial add, its stand in a class all by itself.
N. Hastings on October 11, 2009 at 8:24 pm
I’ve been trying to use this GPS for 8 months but will be replacing it with something that actually works. The Harman Kardon GPS-500 should never have been released for sale. The software locks-up frequently, even pressing the hard-reset sometimes does not help. Loading movies onto the device is nigh on impossible. The maps are hopelessly out of date and can’t be updated. The program logic for entering an address almost never finds the address you are trying to enter. Be ready to take the least efficient route to your destination (that’s if it actually works at all). You will need to press the touch screen buttons several times before the device reacts as the software is so slow. It defaults to California, not the state you are in. Support is non-existent. Harman Kardon should recall this product and give the money back. Its rubbish. The Amazon site insists that I give this device a rating and will not allow a zero-star entry so I have been forced to enter a 1 star rating which is one star too many.
October 2008, Update: While driving to pick my wife up from work I thought I’d let the GPS500 navigate me to my destination, even though I knew exactly where I was going. While driving through Princeton I followed the device’s directions. Interestingly, that’s one thing you should never do with the GPS-500. A couple of minutes later it had me driving in circles around a dorm area of Princeton U. and was itself hopelessly confused. I had determined that I couldn’t give the GPS-500 to anyone as it’s so useless, so I proceeded to a nearby dumpster and liberated myself from this piece of junk. I haven’t gotten lost since. I hope and pray that the device is never found by some unsuspecting person.