Harman Kardon GPS-510 4-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator and Media Player
October 22nd, 2009
, December 12, 2007 , December 12, 2007 High-end audio equipment manufacturer Harman Kardon’s continues to combine solid navigation with truly superb media player function in its GPS products, creating a bar for navigator/personal entertainment system convergence devices. They’ve improved their models this year with a fuller feature set.Feature Set With their first line of GPS navigators released last year, H-K wisely stuck to the basics with their navigation. Perhaps that was the reason navigation worked so much better on Harman Kardon’s devices than on some other navigators produced by manufactuer’s whose core business was not GPS. With basic nav nailed down however, Harman Kardon added a full feature set into this year’s models. All of the new models — the GPS-310, GPS-510, and GPS-810, — come with text-to-speech for spoken directions with real street names, a photo viewer and MP3 player.
The GPS-510 adds a video player and traffic data capability (from TMC Clear Channel). The GPS-810 has the same features you’d get on the top-end model from any manufacturer, and some you may not expect, including Bluetooth connectivity, traffic data, an FM transmitter that will deliver both directions and music through an open channel on your car’s stereo system, and a nifty little Bluetooth remote.4-inch WQVGA 480px x 272px high-resolution widescreen touch screen (actual size) NavigationThe main purpose of any car GPS device is to take you reliably from point A to B. Here the GPS-510 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. 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-510 will automatically re-route you and get you back on your way. And how did the GPS-510 perform out on the road? In a word, admirably.
The responsiveness of the device and excellent user interface make it a joy to use. The GPS-510 also has an extremely fast and accurate GPS signal processor, so it locks, calculates and recalculates routes, and responds to commands quickly. One of the hardest things for a manufacturer without a long history in building GPS navigators is getting the routing algorithms correct, so it was nice to see that Harman Kardon seems to have gotten this right. In most cases, the device decided on logical and efficient routes, too–something that can’t be said of all GPS devices out there. Intuitive interface is easy to operate.
See route planning details. Easy to understand traffic data 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-510’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-510’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. Accurate, detailed 3D navigation, and turn-by-turn directions.
Use the unit’s touch screen to enter address locations. An intuitive menu lets you switch quickly between music, video, and navigation options. Multimedia The GPS-510 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-510 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-510, 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-510.
Lastly, battery life when playing back videos was surprisingly good. After a two-hour movie the GPS-510 was only down to a 40 percent charge. Design The GPS-510 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-510 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. 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-510 portable navigator, wireless FM transmitter, 4-hour lithium-polymer battery, USB 2.0 Hi-Speed computer interface with cable, fold-flat windshield/dashboard mounting bracket, dashboard mounting disk, car charger, wall charger, traffic antenna, carrying case, quick-start guide GPS-510 Harman Kardon Portable Navigation+Traffic+Audio+Video device offers a highly intuitive user interface making it an easy to use navigation device. It features Text-to-Speech in English. It also offers full playback capability of digital music and video files.
All access and control is via a high resolution 4″ WQVGA touchscreen. In navigation mode, it offers easy-to-understand spoken instructions and visuals in 17 different languages. Turn-by-turn graphics with all vital information is displayed in 2-D or 3-D and Maps of U.S. and Canada are built-in along with a 12 million point of interest database. Real-time-traffic information to reroute around traffic delays and antenna is included along with a 90 day free trial period.
The full blown MP3 player offers browsing by Artist, Album, Genre, Song or Playlist. It will display ID3 tags for artist, title and album along with album artwork. MP3/AAC/WMA audio formats are supported along with Windows Media DRM 10 for compatibility with music and video download services. In video player mode the 4″ high resolution WQGVA widescreen plays back hours of video and supports MPEG-4 and WMV9 video formats. All digital media is accessed via SD Card slot (SD card not included) and will accept SD and SDHC cards..
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