How were you able to get one of these if they're not going to be released until the 3rd Q of this year?

Screen looks small. I guess this is Garmin's view/crossover navi device.

Thanks for the detailed review. The nuvi 500 is tempting. I'll be looking forward to the release date.

I am completely shocked. You rated another Garmin with high marks...

How is this unit supposed to mount on a bicycle? The standard nuvi ball-and-socket mount does not seem appropriate for use on a bicycle.

At the moment, this unit has an average owner rating of 2.2 with 9 owner ratings. You clods. Why do people vote on things that aren't released yet which they haven't seen in person?

Thanks for the review, nice and through. I'll be keeping an eye on this unit.

Fltech
Great review as always and you should not allow forum member to vote on a device without owning one. Possibly you should request serial number or something to validate the person voting actually have used the new Nuvi 500 / 550.
I find this unit you reviewed to be exciting since we have beta tested the Magellan CrossOverGPS for sometime now, it would be nice to compare the two.
One thing I like to correct you with is that the latest mapping software from Magellan is offered in the Magellan RoadMate 1412-1430 etc and not the Maestro 4250 so you could have used the Maestro 1412 to compare the products with.
The lack of text to speech and BlueTooth Hands Free is a big disappointment here since in California, we need BT hands free since we can't use the cell phone while driving.
Although Garmin offers walking mode it does not have the TRUE Pedestrian mode route option that will allow a user to take a Pedestrian walkway or overpass which is necessary.
You did not mention these Nuvi 500 / 550 will not remember last position that the power or USB was disconnected like the Nuvi 7xx 8xx.
Being the PND market most popular demand is for 4.3' display and Text to Speech, I would guess possibly Garmin will have a later version of this to meet demand.
I agree regarding the case, I think Garmin should come out with something like the Magellan CrossOverGPS that have a rubberized cover to protect the unit from damage if it is dropped.
I think it is missing some of the features like MP3 and Audio book which would be nice to have if you are hiking or camping.
It also does not have audio out so you can use a headphone while ridding a bicycling or using it in a boat or car with a loud engine.
Garmin always produce excellent products but they also always deliberately leave out some key features so you either have to buy multiple units and or live without certain features that could have been easily incorporated in the unit for a few dollars more.
The Magellan CrossOverGPS do include MP3 Player, Picture viewer and Text to Speech and can be updated with the latest maps with full U.S Canada and Puerto Rico mapping coverage. It can be had for about 1/2 the price of the new Nuvi 500 / 550. Sad part about it Magellan is slowing ending the life of the CrossOverGPS and coming up with something that may not be as rouged.
Great review and enjoyed it as always.

if only the nuvi 500 included a heart rate monitor module...i can replace this for my Garmin Edge. the 500 would be easier for me to see, since i don't wear reading glasses when i bike and the large screen would help immensely.

Maybe some of the bad comments are by people trying to offset the glowing review. Maybe they, like me, were burned by the glowing Colorado review here that somehow missed the myriad problems that device had on launch (like a display that is almost unreadable in bright sunlight). The Colorado holds the grand honor as the most disappointing Garmin product I've ever bought (and I've bought a dozen or so), yet there were no hints of those disappointments in the review.

That review doesn't have stars, but ended with the sentence "Overall there's very little to complain about on the Colorado 400t." The review comments are now up to about 15 pages, many of which are complaints from owners like me. And the Colorado's user ranking stands at 2.9 out of 5. Hopefully that's not a pattern that will be repeated here...

Garmin do make new units with new function instead of upgrading current units and fixing porblems.

1 new Nüvi each month, no wonder why they have no time to fix problems.

Nüvi line 34 models.

available August 10th

It's now official Garmin have gone to the dogs, churning out one useless gadget after the other.

Can't we all just get along and play nice.
Garmin is trying to do what they can to not lose market share, and they still have some of the best products currently available.
So you may say there is trouble with their PLD or PND's, but tell me a company that have a product that is flawless and I can tell you the price of their product is much higher or they will not stay in business much longer.
You will see PND offered at $70 this Q4 and I can tell you it will not be pretty.
You guys want a cheap product and when you get one you complaint there is no quality. Can't have both folks.
Hate to be a GPS manufacturers these days working on single digit profit margin with no room for errors!

I see several references to the Magellan Crossover, but unless I saw the wrong Magellan unit, I find it quite unfair as a comparison.

I own a Garmin Quest. I like it a lot, but I missed the SirfIII sensitivity.
When the Crossover appeared, I thought it was the answer to that.

But, the Crossover version I saw, had to be "rebooted" to change between Road mode and Off-road. I could not get a coordinate in Road-mode, or an Adress in Off-Road mode. The Crossover is not IPX7.

There were several other issues, but these were enough.

The Quest was the best general-purpose unit I know off, doing well in Road and in Off-Road, in a very small package (almost half the volume of a 60CSx, or even the Colorado).

But it got dumped.

Finally, the Nuvi got an upgrade to become a replacement to it, or so it seems.

"or so it seems" - actually no based on this review there is no decent off-road capability even worse than the Magellan.

GPS4ME - "Can't we all just get along and play nice." - it's not the point, based on the ratings people are very disappointed by this new Garmin GPS, it seems their stuff gets worse with each new product these days. What's the point of playing nice, do you work for Garmin or something ?

That's what she said.

diener, have you considered that people who do not own this gps are ranking it? Not you of course. Unlikely they are Garmin fans since none have made it to retail buyers yet. Once this one hits the stores, I expect it will sell more units between now and the Holidays than Magellan has sold Crossovers since their release months ago. I think it fills a big niche market and is just the device that weekend hikers,geotaggers and boaters who need weekday highway navigators are looking for. I've seen dozens of posts from people looking for a device just like this.

This is only good for biking. No text to speech. No Bluetooth. No traffic. Boo!!!

Biking, boating, hiking, geo-tagging, walking and driving. I think many potential buyers can do without bluetooth (seldom used by most), traffic (not terribly reliable), tho TTS at least for highway use would have been a nice touch. But I can't think of another device on the market right now that is so suitable for that many activities.

Diener

" it's not the point, based on the ratings people are very disappointed by this new Garmin GPS, it seems their stuff gets worse with each new product these days. What's the point of playing nice, do you work for Garmin or something ? "

I don't work for Garmin but I helped them get into Cendant which owns Budget and Avis rental car, I was one of the main reason why Garmin GPS is rented in Avis Budget vehicles. Lets say my connection with Garmin is above average.

I also have monthly meetings with the CEO of Magellan and know the Sr staff very well.

I know TomTom CEO when he first came over to NA, and the current VP of sales for many years as a friend.

Mio director recognize us as an important vender for the PND industry and visited my facility in the past.

Besides that, I have great relationship with NavTeq and TeleAtlas for many years. I started in the GPS business since 1996 with Zexel, RockWell, Visteon, Magellan etc so am I more loyal to one brand than the other, not really.

Do I wish Magellan still manufacture a GPS system for $3,000 like the first generation vehicle nav aka PathMaster. YES, we were selling 10% of everything Magellan sold with vehicle navigation products at a much higher profit margin back than and we wish we don't have to sell these cheap PND's that is now being produced by everyone. But this is what the public demands lower prices and this is what they are giving you guys! CHEAP GPS units. You will see PND being offered at $70 this Q4. I ask you one thing, would you trust that cheap unit to function the same way as a unit that cost $500-$1000 with your life. Would you buy a cheap camera to take picture of a very important life event.

Fletch was one of my first customer who used to purchase navigation systems from us but now he receive evaluation units from factory free.

I beta test units for different factories so I have a heads up in some cases and I am probably one of the hardest critic this industry have.

Do I wish every unit comes with everything at a reasonable price,YES. But Garmin strategy is to only offer certain features on certain units so you will never get everything you want from one PND unit from Garmin.

Magellan is trying to offer feature rich products but have issues with routing and stability of their firmware.

TomTom like Apple is a great marketing company, is there product superior, not really, but they have enough people believing in it to be loyal fans of their products and they have achieved what they have strive for.

Mio buying NavMan and slipping away in market share is a shame, they are the company that started the PND price degradation and now they are ending up having to compete with bigger players like Garmin and unable to provide unique and superior products with features at a reasonable cost.

Garmin have to do what they do to keep competitive, if everyone is cheating in this game by launching junk before they are ready, if Garmin wish to stay in the game, they have to play by some of the same rules I hate to say. Garmin last NPD report is up to 58% of NA PND market share which is very respectable and Dan Bartel VP of sales have a lot to do with it.

Now, as far as no traffic goes with the Nuvi 500 / 550, I am not sure that would be correct since it "supports optional FM traffic alerts or optional MSN® Direct content"

Yeah, I wish it had text to speech since it is something I truly enjoy but there again, you can always buy the Magellan CrossOverGPS if you must have text to speech and traffic right?

By the way, want to know who I am, Look up Auto Nav 2000 and look up the history page, you will find that I test many systems and have an open mind to all the issues I report because I know I rather live with some of the issues than to not have a unit at all.

One of the uses that is very important to me is off road navagation. The review hardly mentioned this feature. Does this unit truly have that capability or should I go with a hand held instead? I really like all the other features.
Al

I'm sure you'd find it adequate, especially for occasional use. If most of your use would be off-road, a dedicated hand-held might work better since some of the functions will be more suited and specialized for hiking than those of the 500. For someone using this on vacation in the mountains one or two weeks a year, or geo-tagging a couple times a month, looks to me like it would work just fine.

Do not work at 2am!

Does this unit allow the laying of cookie trails and the retracing of those trails?

I am going to return my Nuvi 500, because it comes without a manual. Garmin doesn't intend to publish one. The help is inadequate. Guessing my way through the screens while driving is not acceptable. What do the symbols and icons mean? The only way to find out is to hit them all and see where they go. The Help menu is strictly Dick-and-Jane. What does the big arrow on the compass mean? What does the little tab on the compass mean? How do I review my trip log in text?

Did you check for a manual in PDF format at Garmin? That's the way they come nowadays. Very few PND's come with a paper owner's manual anymore, instead using PDF's.

Garmin needs to stop putting out new models everyweek and add these features to their existing models.

Is there a reason why the Geocaching features cannot be added to a 250 or 350 Nuvi?

Fletch,

I have purchased a Nuvi 500. Unfortunately, the Speed Limit graphic is NOT something a user can remove. Also, this unit is reported by Garmin to NOT include WAAS. Both of those points are show stoppers for me (having lived - virtually common-law now) with a GPS-V with accuracy up to 6' and a scintillating "beep."

Can you share how you turned off the Speed Limit graphic?

I'm now looking for something out there which will replace the tried and true GPS-V. Thanks!

Peter

Being the owner of a Magellan Roadmate 2200T-NA which I bought and upgraded to the Crossover via firmware in Sept 2007 I found this review very interesting. Unfortunatly for me Magellan is shelving the Crossover at the end of Dec 2008.

I now have an alternate source for when my unit eventually fails.

Being Canadian I would be interested in the Nuvi 550. As it doesn't come with Topo maps built in I don't know if I could justify the extra cost for Topo maps as well as the unit.

The fact that it cannot be used as an MP3 player I consider a good thing as you may needlessly run down the batteries when hiking. The lack of Bluetooth is not an issue either as there are a lot of cheaper standalone Bluetooth devices that can be used.

I like the idea of being able to swap out the battery. IPX-7 is also a welcome.

There was no mention of a spot to attach a lanyard which could allow one to secure it while handling it on a walk. That's not much of an issue to over come though.

Text to Speech would have been nice - especially at that price.
Over all sounds like a promising unit.

John

Did you buy a used unit or something, Dick?
There were printed manuals in several languages in my box, both "quick start" and complete manuals. All these are also available for download from garmin.com.

I have been looking for a crossover GPS for quite a time now (over a year). I do search and rescue and I am looking for something that will help me drive to the search site and will also assist me in the field once I get there. I really want something that will do the road navigation with verbal commands (I can live with it not saying the actual road name). However, the real show stopper is the ability to save tracks. I really need to be able to document the path my search dog and I took during the search.

Does anyone know of a GPS unit that will serve my needs? I was looking at the Colorado, but it dosn't do verbal driving commands, and some of the comments on this website steered me away (that and it's so expensive & additional maps would have to be added). This Nuvi 500 looks really close, but it dosn't seem to save tracks. I would like to avoid buying 2 units because of the cost and having to deal with the 2 of them.

I bought one, but I am going to return it. It's primarily a car GPS with some minor adaptions. The biggest problem is the visibility of the screen in sunlight which is non-existent. It does have a nice bright backlit screen but it washes out in sunlight - compared with say a 60CX reflective screen which works supremely well in sunlight and very well in backlit mode.

It works well as a car GPS but for ot much more I can buy a better car unit and a better trail unit, so that's what I'll do.

Another design flaw is the USB cable plugs into the BACK - not the side of the unit. This means that it cannot be placed or stuck on a flat surface. They give you a right angled USB cable but it still sticks out too far. I was planning to use velcro to attach it to a suitable spot on my dashboard and on my bike and sail boat, but I can't do that with the charger in.

Also if you plug it into any other USB charger other than the Garmin one, it stops working and goes into PC communication mode. I was thinking that I would take an emergency backup power supply of some AA cells supplying power through a USB cable, since its 8 hour batter life is too short - but this won't work.

Disappointing.

I forgot to comment on the poor trail management. The 60cx is a mapping handheld. It lays a trail as you go and the trails stay on the unit and can be viewed in detail. You build a map of your routes. Even without a chart or topo you can navigate your way back to your starting point in fog/whiteout. With the 60cx I could tell from the track what course my boat was on, how well I was tacking, even where I had to alter course to sail round moored boats.

The Nuvi 500/550 can retrace your last route but it doesn't show your trails as you make them or allow you to look at previous trails. The silly thing is that the trails are stored in the unit, you can download them to MapSource and use them there, but not on the unit itself. This is a huge barrier to using it off-road. I would love to see this unit with the trail mapping software from the Oregon or 60cs and a reflective screen - oh and a way of supplying external power through the USB port without it going into 'PC' mode. Or perhaps I'm saying I want an Oregon with a brighter screen and voice instructions. Either way would work :)

Since returning it, the price has come down over $120 too.

I've owned a Nuvi 500 for about 5 months now, and I need to make some comments and corrections to some of what has been said here--both in the main review and in the comments.

First of all--you can officially remove the complaint about this unit lacking text-to-speech capabilities. With a recent firmware upgrade, these units now announce street names as you approach them, as well as the names of destinations. If you want the unit to say "drive point two miles to the Smith mansion" as you approach your house, you now can do it.

Regarding the comment made here about this unit not showing trails as you make them, that's not entirely correct. It does allow you to see your "Trip Log" as you travel. Just go to >Tools, >Settings, >Maps, >Trip Log, >Show, and it will show you where youve been. It doesn't call them "Trails", and might not have all the "Trails" features as some units, but it's not as lacking as some comments here would have you believe.

All in all, I love my Nuvi 500. It has all the features I need for auto navigation, and all the features I need for geocaching, all rolled into a single unit. Like everyone, I do have a wish list (highest two on this list--I wish it had a place to attach a lanyard, and I wish it had a simple means of viewing the coordinates of a saved location), but as of today, there's nothing out there that tops this--especially now that it has text-to-speech.

Hi, i'll buy a nuvi 550 soon, and i have a question about how the maps are stored on a microsd card. I know that 550 does not includes topo maps but i bought them about a year ago for my pc. Can it include multi maps on the same microsd card ? like the topo map and the bluechart one, or including two types of topo maps on the same sd card ?? how about adding 3rd party maps on the same sd card ? thanks

Well I just bought my 1st gps ever I know what took me so long :o) I wanted to make sure I bought the right gps and I watched the gps prices to come down into my price range and tech about as much info on a gps as I could possibly ever see I'd use . I bought the Nuvi 500 because of part of what Bill V wrote about his info.
The more I play around with my nuvi 500 the more impressed I become wow I picked the right one

Can this unit store coordinates and remember trails? How many? I would like a unit I can use on the road, but also a unit I can use while riding horse in very remote locations. I want to be able to mark where water sources are, camp site, etc and be able to navigate back to them after riding all day. Also, are very remote roads on the maps? I bought a Lawrance ZOG and it did not know several of the BLM Nevada roads that are remote, yet still maintained by the county. I marked water tanks and it told me it could not navigate me back to them because they were "too far from a road" even though they WERE on a road. There were several other things that did not meet my expectations, I was very unimpressed and sent it back.

Great review, but another con is no MP3Player or FM transmitter.
After having those in the Garmin 750, I won't be owning another one without those two options.

I own the Garmin Nuvi 500 and I can comment on how every time I use it for a different use it never sem to let me down. And as for the other people writing reviews , posting there views on the Garmin Nuvi 500 and not owning one , I don't get it ? you can't judge what a fantastic job this unit does unless you own one and use it for a couple months . Put it through the different tasks. I have let my friends play with it when where out playing in the woods and kayking and they all want one . the viewing screen larger so a heck of a lot easier to see all around. And menu super easy once you get used to it, That just comes after you start playing with it and use it more and more . I really enjoy being able to switch back and forth between topograghpical and the road map in route . I knew going into purchuse my Nuvi 500 that it didn't do a lot of the things the just street gps units do. And as for playing music through the gps or bluetooth all of that is nice but you can't have it all and still have any kind of battery life plus be able to run yet an entire seperate gps program Topographical maps at the sametime inner laced . I mean if you stop and think about it its really pretty amazing. I think we tend to forget that it wasn't all that long ago that I know I was using a map and compus and still do for back up but really .This new Hi-Tech GPS we have really been spoiled getting it and having so many different models and selections out there. I think if you read and compair units ,features you need, have to have and then the features you just wish for . You can narrow down the right model for you. All I know is from owning the Nuvi 500 I for one and very , very , happy with it and love it . I would buy another one all over again if something happened to mine. As far as finding out how things work , between this web page with its wonderful color display of the functions and how too's there is one at Garmin as well . I found several spots for lots of gps units all over the web. So there out there. Utub had a video of the Nuvi 500 submerged in a fish tank I do beleive ? pretty sure I saw that ? Utub has so much out there , you can find just about anything . I'm also very pleased with the voice commands for driving making turns plus the info displayed on the screen which exit to take and how far before you make your turn. this is pretty basic stuff. But the switching back to Topo gives me the little extra more detail and shows at least I have found the streets and lay of the land where its not flat to me sure helps me figure out faster where I'm at if I know the road is climbing up a slight incline hill or going down a hill . Even if the GPS tells you the whole route I still like to see and know the lay of the land. So I'm still just as happy with my Nuvi as the day I bought it . And it does have limits , but so do the other GPS units . So just don't think your going to find the perfect do all because I don't think there is one yet made . And if they have it, the price is going to be well out of my price range ! this Nuvi was just right $ and fits right in my front pocket or backpack. Hope this helps people . I plan on buying a motorcycle in the near future and this was another facture in the Nuvi 500 just another thing to think about. You have a multipurpose GPS .

I made my own lanyard out of 80# braided Dacron kite flying line. It fit perfectly in the grove of the top part of the face bezel and the bottom part of the case. I put the kite flying line in the grove, measured it, removed the string, tied an overhand knot making a loop that would fit the nuvi like a glove, and tied another overhand knot on the other end to attach a carabiner. The trick was to make sure that the measurement was just right so that it would fit as tight as possible. So far so good.