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- Average user rating: 2.0 stars out of 18 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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4 out of 4 people found this review helpful
2.5 stars
"Solid GPS, but extra features are poorly executed."
Pros: Accurate navigation, TTS, very responsive and stable OS.
Cons: Could use some better display features, like the ability to select larger labels for street names, and current trip information. Phone and multimedia features are not very useable.
Summary: My old GPS was swiped recently, so I was looking to replace it and upgrade. I wanted a unit with a bigger screen (4.3") and multimedia capabilites. I came across a deal for the Nokia 500 online for $99. Yes, I said $99. I figured, at that price, it's worth a try. It has bluetooth for handsfree calling, FM transmitter, and built in music/photo/video player. Sweet, right?
Well, it is foremost a GPS and I am thankful that it does a pretty solid job of navigating. It does everything you would expect a GPS to do, and does it very well. The POIs, maps, trip planning, text to speech, interface, 2D/3D views, etc, all are very well implemented. This is my second unit, and I've seen the Mio, TomTom, and Garmin systems for the most part, but never used them in the real world, so I am not the best source to compare. But I find the Nokia system perfectly suitable for guiding you to your destination. I've noticed a few routes that don't seem to make much sense to me, but this is the case with every GPS from any manufacturer. I wish the main screen views were more customizeable. I'd like to see bigger icons/labels for POIs and street names, etc. Seems like a waste of screen real estate when the map is no bigger than on my old 3.5 inch gps screen. They should put the map up on the whole screen and overlay the other information instead of using a portion of the screen to show time, distance, speed, etc. Also, it doesn't give elevation, which I think is nice to know on long trips.
The added features are, for me, pretty much useless, and here's why:
1) Bluetooth works, it paired with my phone right away and even downloaded all my contacts effortlessly. I could go into the phone menu, select a person and talk to them just fine. BUT, you can barely hold a conversation in a moving car. The speaker on the unit is not loud enough even at max, and the people on the other end could not hear me very well and always reported a lot of static. Also, the voice calling features won't work. I press the button on the unit, wait a second, then hear the voice prompt from my phone. I say "call [name] home" but before the phone can confirm the number, the Nokia unit times out and the call is cancelled, very frustrating. What is more frustrating is that you cannot activate the FM transmitter from the phone menu, so if you were planning to hear a caller through your car's speakers, you have to navigate out to the main settings to acitvate the FM transmitter (strangely, you CAN activate the FM transmitter from the mp3 player menu). However, the FM transmitter automatically times out after 1 minute, so unless you have the mp3 player going continuously, you have to re-activate it for each phone call. This must be a law in Europe, because it makes a point of telling you about it in a pop up box when you activate the feature. It should be disabled for US customers. So, the unit is ultimately useless as a bluetooth handsfree speakerphone.
2) The photo and video players both do what they're intended to do (the video player takes up a lot of processing power, so you must deactivate any navigation operations running in order to watch a video). I won't be watching video on this unit anyway. One minor complaint about the photo viewer, don't expect to just pop in an SD card from your camera to take advantage of the bigger screen on this unit for portable photo viewing. The screen is nice enough, but unless you are viewing very small files, it takes 10+ seconds to load and display a photo from a typical 6-8 megapixel camera. Not very convenient.
3) MP3 player, the other major reason for purachasing this unit was to play music through my car stereo via the FM transmitter. The player software is rudimentary. It will cetainly find and play everything, but you can't scroll through files or playlists at will. You can't bring up a list of albums, artists, genres, or anything else we are accustomed to by now, whether you have an iPod or other mp3 player. You have to navigate to a particular folder and then play the songs IN ORDER. Well, that's dumb. It will show you the whole list of songs in that folder, but you can't touch song #5 to hear it. You press play, and it starts with the first file in the folder. If I want to hear song #5, I have to press forward/skip 4 times. Furthermore, the FM transmitter is weak. It's great that you can turn it on and adjust/store up to 5 different stations right from the mp3 player menu. However, I have not been able to hear a song yet without some static or other noise coming through. My standalone fm transmitter sounds awesome with virtually no noise or static at all, even on stations with a weak broadcast coming through. So again, pretty much useless for listening to music.
Overall, for $99, its a great GPS, but not much else. And I adamantly disagree with the CNET reviewer. There are plenty of us out here who want a PND with multimedia features.
