Harman Kardon GPS-500 Christmas Deals!
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Harman Kardon GPS-500 Christmas Deals!.
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I unprejudiced got this Harman kardon GPS intention and plan 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 exercise), 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 intention. The first is the expansive mask. You don't realize how nice such a tremendous mask is until you assign it side by side with my diminutive Garmin (half an whisk goes a long draw) . It's great, incandescent, easy to read when it's all the design on your windshield, all that goodness. The second gigantic thing is the user interface. I leer the Amazon review caught this too. This is the only nav I've seen that has slick-looking menus and buttons. But more than objective looking great, the really nice thing is that it's very easy to bag it to do what you want, like entering an address or changing the settings. What I mean is that you don't have to fade to a enormous menu hierarchy or figure out what the icons mean to rep anywhere, everything is unprejudiced 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 procedure cloak fleet. It's slight things like that build 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 plot it shows the title of the new song. Seems positive, honest? The earn of the method is slim and fits in your pocket. It doesn't have a gigantic fold-out antenna (which I didn't realize when I bought it), that itsy-bitsy bump at the top left is (I judge) the antenna. I was a bit shrinking about GPS reception, but a side-by-side with my aforementioned GPS, it was not any slower.
Here's the technical ample stuff for all of you geeks out there. Like I said, GPS performance seems on par, and there's an external antenna promenade if you have a roof one (haven't tried this) . Routing is ravishing apt, if a bit tiresome. One thing that seems unique is that it considers all the itsy-bitsy alleyways in my neighborhood to be streets. It's kind of unusual, but not a mammoth 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 accept music or videos from one of the subscription services, you can spend it like a Microsoft portable player over MPT. I don't have any of these so did not try this feature out. The intention 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 beautiful. It doesn't view 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 ample (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 retract it out of the mount with fair one hand and not really any force. It's been stuck on my windshield for about 2 days now, and doesn't seek like it's coming off.
Things I didn't like include the annoying warning shroud when you play a video. If you're the kind of person that is going to gape a video while driving, I don't judge a warning message is going to terminate 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 colorful. A cramped duct-tape fixed this.
Overall, I'm gay I bought this thing. It has the expansive cloak and the nice develop of a GPS contrivance that costs twice as considerable. More than that, my dad was able to figure out how to spend it (that's saying a lot), so he will actually spend it instead of unprejudiced leaving it at home (which means that I won't be seeing distinguished of it again) . Tall value, highly recommended.
I've bear 2 other GPS units before, both handhelds (a Garmin and a Magellan) . They are primarily stale for hiking/camping. I also have a built-in OEM GPS navigation unit in my MDX. I bought this unit for my wife for her to consume in her car. So far, here are my impressions:
1) Unit size is nice
2) Winshield mounting suction bracket is diminutive and sturdy
3) Mask is definite and crisp
4) Menus are easy and intuitive
5) Battery life is good
6) Easy out-of-the-box setup
7) Does what it's grunt to do (score places and tells you how to gain there)
Lots of declare commands that let's you have broad time to prepare
9) I like that it uses the mini-USB port to charge the design as well as to sync with your computer
Having said that, there are 2 major gripes that I have with the unit:
1) While driving, it automatically zooms for you. Normally, this is a kindly feature to have but sometimes, I like to zoom further out so I can have a better opinion of what the nearby streets explore like. I don't like the fact that 2 seconds after I change the zoom-level to what I like, the unit automatically zooms encourage to the level it likes. I wish there was a draw to turn off this feature. It can be quite annoying.
2) There is no button on the scheme shroud that let's you go directly to the directions list; you have to go through a few menus to obtain to the directions list. I regain it very useful to be able to do this so I have an view of what turns are coming up, at what streets, etc.
And here are some general comments as well:
1) Like with many other GPS units, when you first turn it on, it takes several minutes to lock onto a signal. The reason I occupy is that it has to download the "almanac" from the satellites. Subsequent power-on has taken no more than 15 seconds to lock on. If you have it off, fade several hundred miles, then turn it on, it will also then pick several minutes to lock on since it again needs to download the "almanac". Then after that, it should be fairly hastily. Please behold link for better explaination: [...]
2) Another reviewer mentioned that he had splendid coverage in SoCal. The GPS signal is not like a cellphone signal in which there are areas of better coverage than others. The GPS satellites has coverage over the ENTIRE world. The main factor that determines your signal strength (or lack of a signal lock) is your plan of the commence sky. If you are in the city with lots of vast buildings, it may not have an begin plan to at least 3 satellites in which it needs to calculate your place.
3) Not a major lisp with me, but the unit does not seem to distinguish which side of the road your destination is on.
4) Added 06/11/07: Another minor roar -- I wish it had the ability to prove current/max rush, odometer, etc. Not something most people would probably need, but it's nice to have.
Overall, I reflect it's a vast unit and it does it's job very well. It's not perfect and doesn't have some of the features (bluetooth, FM modulator, text-to-speech, etc.) of more expensive units, but it is a big GPS for the money. Of course, the just test will be when my wife starts using it!
I fair recently got this GPS and had a chunky 3 days to test it out. Overall, I would say it's a very proper GPS unit but with some well-known flaws.
BACKGROUND
I was using a Garmin C330 that I got 2 years ago until it decided to bite the dust on me. Spent some time on-line looking at this product along with the Garmin NUVI models and TomTom models. I decided on this one due to its widescreen format, mp3 and video capabilities, and brand.
PROS
- The presentation of this GPS unit is very slick. It is pleasing thin and not too heavy. It has tidy lines and is not over-cluttered with buttons and knobs.
- The cover resolution is outstanding. When I first broken-down it in deliver daylight, it appeared "washed out". However, I turned up the brightness on the unit and it was attractive - considerable better than my previous Garmin GPS. In non-direct sunlight viewing and nighttime viewing, the resolution is outstanding with knowing colors and determined text.
- The widescreen format allows more "accurate estate" to provide additional info including next turn, time/distance to destination, and even the song you're playing (if you're concurrently using the MP3 player) .
- The GPS capabilities itself I would nasty as average-to-above average. It locks in the signal fairly rapid - about the same as my Garmin. It does sometimes occupy awhile to calculate the route. That I found a bit annoying, but nothing unbearable.
- I like the fact that you can stagger the scheme around to be able to belief upcoming streets, etc. My archaic Garmin couldn't do this - not positive if they have added that capability in fresh Garmin models.
- Another expansive feature of the GPS is the ability to "touch" areas on the contrivance to reveal business and resident addresses. For example, I "touched" a street corner come my house on the GPS plan and it showed the 24 hour fitness gym and other businesses there.
- It has a nice carrying case that makes it easy to carry around for optimal mobile utilize.
- The battery life is very profitable. Not quite the 5 hours that Harman Kardon states but I got mine working for 4 hours.
- The User Interface is intuitive, simple and effective.
CONS
- The GPS unit does not divulge you if the destination is on the left or suitable side of the street. I found this rather annoying because it didn't give me gargantuan time to acquire on the moral side of the road. Granted you can figure out what side it's on based upon address, but I contemplate it's a simple fragment of functionality that should be in most GPS units today.
- You cannot turn off the navigation swear while listening to the MP3 player. Personally, I don't always like to listen to the turn-by-turn direction prompts. However, I wanted to listen to my MP3's on the unit. Unfortunately, you can't have both. If you're listening to MP3's, you will fetch snarl prompts (no matter how improper you state the volume mixer) .
- The sound quality of the MP3 is only average. From a company like Harman-Kardon, I was expecting a worthy better difficulty. I have an AUX input in my car and I tested 2 songs on both the GPS unit and my iPod. The iPod sounded far better. Granted, the mp3 playback is not the main purpose of the GPS unit, but calm, I examine higher quality from this company.
- The UI "hiccups" that the Amazon review stated were NOT due to pre-production software. I experienced the same thing. Sometimes, it would engage the unit 5-8 seconds to reply to my ask. Blame it on buggy "1.0" software I guess.
Overall, I reflect this GPS unit was a superior investment and I like most of its features. The few flaws it had are not "make-or-break" for me, but do obtain things a bit inconvenient.
Hopefully HK will purchase some of this feedback into consideration when releasing their 2nd gen version. But overall, I assume the HK guys did a gargantuan job in their first introductory GPS unit in the market.
