Harman Kardon GPS-510 4-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator and Media Player
from: Harman Kardon
List Price: $399.99
Prices subject to change.
Price: $162.48
You Save: $237.51 (59%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Product Description:
Guide + Play GPS-510 is the new portable GPS navigator and digital audio/video player from Harman Kardon. Easy to use and requiring no installation, the GPS-510 is the ultimate all-in-one navigation and entertainment system for vehicle or personal use. Ju
Amazon.com Product Description, 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.
Navigation
The 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.
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.
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.
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
Minor lag during some operations
Limited video format compatibility
No sleep or low power standby function
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
Guide + Play GPS-510 is the new portable GPS navigator and digital audio/video player from Harman Kardon. Easy to use and requiring no installation, the GPS-510 is the ultimate all-in-one navigation and entertainment system for vehicle or personal use. Ju
Amazon.com Product Description, 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) |
The 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 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
Minor lag during some operations
Limited video format compatibility
No sleep or low power standby function
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
Features:
- Text-to-Speech in English announces the next manuever by name such as the street name or highway.The GPS-510's translation from Text-to-Speech is very easy to understand and natural sounding.
- A Real-time traffic reciever is integrated allowing the unit to receive notifications of traffic incidents allowing the opportunity to re-route around them (subscription required, 90 day free trial included).
- 4" WQVGA 480 x 272 High resolution widescreen provides an increased viewing area and detail making it easier to read instructions and street names.
- The GPS-510 features a highly intuitive, easy-to-use interface.Minimal key strokes are needed to program an address, look up points-of-interest or find the song you want to listen to.
- Full-featured digital audio & video player is included to make it a great personal media player in addition to an incredible portable navigation unit.The audio player allows you to search by artist, album, genre, song or playlist and displays album art.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Okay, but you can do better.
I bought this GPS because it does what my girlfriend's doesn't, play music from the SD card while navigating.This was something I required due to not being able to hear the GPS over the radio.So, I just plug the head phone jack into my car stereo to reroute the sound.While it works I have been unable to get the play list to work even after extended e-mails with tech support.This is a major issue for me as it makes listening to things like audio books impossible.If all you want is a music ... Read More
Rating: 
- Good for the price
Paid around 160 for this.
Pros :
Good screen size, Media and Traffic capabilities
Cons :
Couldnt get map icons to work
No user manual at all in the pkg(couldnt find it online too)
Screen too sensitive to touches (double clicks very often)
Froze once (had to press the hard reset button) in the first few weeks of usage
Takes a min or two to latch on to satellites.
Rating: 
- Do not buy this product
I bought two GPS from amazon one for myself and one for my friend. After opening package i followed the process suggested by Harmon Kardon to start the GPS for the first time. First GPS froze while initial setup only. Even after several resets it never completed initial setup. Second unit was also facing problems in initial setup but it completed initial setup after several resets. I used that GPS for a testing it lead to wrong destination. It asked me turn on dead end streets. I could never access ... Read More
Rating: - Great GPS andgreat features
The Harman/Kardon gps 510NA is a GPS that gets the job done and more. The navigation is really intuitive and easy to use. I live in the Midwest and seems to me that I get a GPS lock really quickly even from a cold start. The text-to-speech is a great feature, I love it for when I have no idea where I am. When I do know where I am I like to change the voice to the British person, it just sounds cool.
After reading some of the other reviews I was a little worried about purchasing this device ... Read More
Rating: - Good for the price
Picked this up on a Gold Box deal for $200.
My wife was especially interested in the MP3 capabilities, but unless you happen to have a stereo with RCA input jacks, the only way you can listen to the songs you put on it would be using the little speaker on the GPS.(I guess if you have a mini-jack plug in, you might be able to convert the two RCA's to mini-jack and plug it in that way.)But if you have neither of these options, it might just be better to get a new stereo.
Okay, ... Read More
- Okay, but you can do better.I bought this GPS because it does what my girlfriend's doesn't, play music from the SD card while navigating.This was something I required due to not being able to hear the GPS over the radio.So, I just plug the head phone jack into my car stereo to reroute the sound.While it works I have been unable to get the play list to work even after extended e-mails with tech support.This is a major issue for me as it makes listening to things like audio books impossible.If all you want is a music ... Read More
- Good for the price Paid around 160 for this.
Pros :
Good screen size, Media and Traffic capabilities
Cons :
Couldnt get map icons to work
No user manual at all in the pkg(couldnt find it online too)
Screen too sensitive to touches (double clicks very often)
Froze once (had to press the hard reset button) in the first few weeks of usage
Takes a min or two to latch on to satellites.
- Do not buy this productI bought two GPS from amazon one for myself and one for my friend. After opening package i followed the process suggested by Harmon Kardon to start the GPS for the first time. First GPS froze while initial setup only. Even after several resets it never completed initial setup. Second unit was also facing problems in initial setup but it completed initial setup after several resets. I used that GPS for a testing it lead to wrong destination. It asked me turn on dead end streets. I could never access ... Read More
- Great GPS andgreat featuresThe Harman/Kardon gps 510NA is a GPS that gets the job done and more. The navigation is really intuitive and easy to use. I live in the Midwest and seems to me that I get a GPS lock really quickly even from a cold start. The text-to-speech is a great feature, I love it for when I have no idea where I am. When I do know where I am I like to change the voice to the British person, it just sounds cool.
After reading some of the other reviews I was a little worried about purchasing this device ... Read More
- Good for the pricePicked this up on a Gold Box deal for $200.
My wife was especially interested in the MP3 capabilities, but unless you happen to have a stereo with RCA input jacks, the only way you can listen to the songs you put on it would be using the little speaker on the GPS.(I guess if you have a mini-jack plug in, you might be able to convert the two RCA's to mini-jack and plug it in that way.)But if you have neither of these options, it might just be better to get a new stereo.
Okay, ... Read More
