Garmin nuvi 500 Series | 550 and 500 Waterproof Multimode Portable GPS Navigators Review

The Garmin nuvi 500 series including the nuvi 550 and nuvi 500, are hybrid GPS navigators which combine multiple modes of navigation (driving, hiking, biking and boating) with a durable and waterproof (IPX7) casing to suit the outdoor uses. One can shift navigation from car to hiking simply by toggling to the correct navigation mode.

Garmin nuvi 500 Series

To make it easy to take on your outdoor recreation activities, the nuvi 500 series are pocket size and weigh only 7.6 ounces. To fit in with outdoor use the series comes with a compass display and a tracklog. For less rugged travel the nüvi 500 series includes tools, such as a world travel clock with time zones, currency converter, measurement converter and calculator. There is a picture viewer to show off your travel photos.

The Garmin nuvi 500 models have a 3.5-inch color touchscreen display (320 x 240 pixels) which has been designed to be easy to read in direct sunlight

GPS reception sensitivity is important if you are going to be driving in an urban canyon or under heavy foliage/cover on an outdoors trail. The nuvi 500 series come with a high sensitivity, WAAS enabled receiver. To ensure you have a quick GPS satellite siginal acquisition time Garmin’s HotFix is on board.

The removable, rechargeable lithium-ion battery has a life of up to eight hours for extended outdoor use. As you may be using your nuvi 500 model away from home for extended periods, Garmin have kindly include a 12-volt power adapter for vehicle charging as well as an AC charger.

Navigating the Roads with the Garmin nuvi 500 Series

The garmin nuvi 500 models provide turn-by-turn voice directions with a choice or 2-D or 3-D map display. The digital elevation model (DEM) mapping shows you shaded contours at higher zoom levels, giving you a big picture of the surrounding terrain.

Tools to customize your route planning include;

Route avoidance (avoid highways, tolls etc.)
Choice of route setup (faster time, shorter distance, off road)
Auto re-route (fast off-route and detour recalculation)
Auto sort multiple destinations (provides most direct route)

You can also select a destination by the usual options and the use of Garmin Connect Photos which have been geotagged. There is a database of some 6 million Points of Interest (POI) to search which can be added to with your own customized POIs.

As safety feature of the Garmin nuvi 500 models is “Where am I?” which instantly shows you all of the emergency services nearby

The difference between the Garmin nuvi 500 and 550 models is the preloaded maps. The nüvi 500 comes with City Navigator NT street maps and topographic maps for the 48 contiguous United States, Hawaii and Puerto Rico. The 550 has maps of the entire U.S. and Canada but, no topographic maps. The map data is supplied by NAVTEQ and be supplemented using map data on microSD cards (the microSD slot is under the battery). Both units are also preloaded with a database of some 6 million POI including hotels, restaurants, gas stations, ATMs to name a few.

With the addition of an optional receiver, both 500 series models can receive important updated information from Traffic Message Channel or MSN Direct.

The 500 series models support a couple of geocaching features;