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Best Sellers | | Home Pioneer AVIC-F500BT 5.8-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator | |
|  | |  | | | Pioneer AVIC-F500BT 5.8-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator | | | | | SKU:
AVICF500BT | | In Stock | | Availability:
Usually ships in 1-2 business days | | Only 5 left in stock, order soon! | | | | | | The Pioneer AVIC-F500BT on-dash navigator offers an advanced, all-in-one solution for adding large-screen navigation, multimedia capability, and hands-free calling to your vehicle ¿ without removing your factory radio. Simply mount this road-ready travel companion on your dashboard and exercise convenient control over your music, phone, and navigation. | | | |
List Price:
| $700.00 | |
Our Price:
| $699.99 | |
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| | Product Details | | Product Length: | 1.13 inches | | Product Width: | 7.25 inches | | Product Height: | 3.88 inches | | Product Weight: | 1.0 pounds | | Package Length: | 11.1 inches | | Package Width: | 6.9 inches | | Package Height: | 5.8 inches | | Package Weight: | 4.5 pounds | | Average Customer Rating: |  based on 33 reviews |
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| | Features | Multimedia GPS navigation system with built-in antennaWVGA touchscreen (800 x 480 pixelsIncludes MSN Direct receiver with free 90-day subscription to MSN Direct serviceInternal 2GB flash memory preloaded with maps for the United States and CanadaText-to-speech technology lets voice prompts announce road names over the built-in speaker
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| | Customer Reviews | Average Customer Review: ( 33 customer reviews )
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 26 found the following review helpful:
 Good deal for $199 Feb 13, 2009
By A. Fu
I've been using the F500BT for a few weeks after using a Nuvi 760 for years. I already upgraded to Firmware 2.0. Here is how the F500BT compares to the Nuvi
Cons:
- Routing engine not as good as the Nuvi. Very prone to give U-Turns when I miss a turn even though I disabled them. Worse is that it doesn't know if the U-turn is illegal or not. Besides the U turn issue, most routes offered are not that bad in "Economical"
- Touchscreen not very responsive. Not as good as the Nuvi.
- Not as easy to use as the Nuvi in general.
- MSN does not work unless you use a big ugly harness. You also need to connect a ebrake signal for to avoid the menus getting locked out.
- Battery life of 30mins
- Does not auto dim the screen when switching to night maps.
- Does not tell you the side of your destination. The Nuvi does.
- Only 1 TTS voice in English. Not great, but not horrible either.
- Voice recognition doesn't work very well
Pros:
- Nice glossy look with a big screen. Looks way more expensive than $199
- Map and menu hard buttons are very convenient to have
- GPS reception seems to be as good as the Nuvi. I get reception indoors
- A lot more information is displayed on the map compared to the Nuvi
- Plays AVI movies
- Lane Assist on freeway junctions. A MUST HAVE.
- Maps are very smooth map animation when routing. Much better than the 760, which was always 2 seconds behind and when making turns it would lag for 3-4 seconds
- Voice does not stutter unlike the Nuvi 760
- Very easy to hack and goes from good to almost great after hacking. I also have TomTom Navigator and Garmin XT loaded (more on this later)
- 3D buildings are pretty cool.
- Pairs with my Palm Centro with no problems. My phonebook does not dissapear. BT performance way better than that of the Nuvi
You can head to avic411.com forums and learn how to modify the Pioneer software aka IGO8 (its very easy). You can also add new maps schemes, and enable speed camera warnings, add extra 3D buildings, load international maps, etc. You can even hack the unit so it runs Tomtom and Garmin XT. However, these 2 don't have the same software as the PND counterparts, so I use the Pioneer software anyways. With the hacks I now get the current house number at my position, so I can easily know which side of the road my destination is on. I also increased the font size of the data displayed on the map. Overall, its a very good deal at $199.
23 of 25 found the following review helpful:
 The potential is there - fingers crossed for FW updates Feb 03, 2009
By Ming Chan
Pros:
- Large LCD screen.
- Decent maps and navigation.
- Plays video and music files from SD and flash drives.
- Relatively cheap.
Cons:
- Touch screen response is erratic.
- Text to speech (TTS) voice quality is poor.
- Voice recognition does not work particularly well.
- No photo viewer.
To start off, I am already running the new 2.0 FW. If you are not, make sure you update.
The biggest complaint that I have is overall sluggishness. Often times one touches a button, and nothing happens at all for a while. This is in stark contrast to the Garmin and TomTom units that I have, and reminds me of Windows. But my oh my this IS Windows! The unit actually runs on Windows CE... which brings us to the start up time. The unit takes a long time to start up (a "cold" boot). Since this should happen rarely, it shouldn't have been a problem. In fact once the unit is running, pressing the power button to turn off/on the unit is almost instantaneous. However, for some mysterious reasons, the unit does decide to cold boot from time to time (see below on "cabling").
As a GPS, the unit functions reasonably. It is not particularly fast in acquiring satellites but tolerable. The 2D maps are pretty detailed and good looking, but the orientation is fixed at pointing North as in a real map. There is no option to orient the map according to your current driving direction, as in the 3D map mode.
Despite the large screen size, some vital information (like time to destination and nearby street names etc) are rendered in font sizes far too small to my liking. My Garmin has a smaller 4.3 inch screen but the texts are a lot more readable.
For voice navigation, there are two different selections for English. One is a male voice of good quality but does not support text-to-speech, meaning that street names won't be announced. The female version does support text-to-speech, but the quality is pretty poor. By the way none of this is in the manual...
Connecting the unit to a Blue-tooth enabled phone is a snap. I paired it up with a Razor and transferring the phone book is smooth. The unit is touted to have advanced voice recognition. Supposedly one can use natural utterances to command the unit to dial your wife. In reality the performance is poor, even using straight syntax like "call John", as compared to the native voice recognition on my 3 year old Razor. I wish there's an option to bypass the unit's voice recognition and have it function just like a normal BT speaker phone. That way I can rely on the more reliable voice commands of the phone itself.
As a media player, I'm surprised that the unit does not play JPEG, which I thought would have been the simplest thing to do. As for playing video and music files from SD cards and USB thumb drives, the user interface is functional but mediocre in this day and age of iPods and iPhones. I have not tried iPod control - I just can't justify paying another 40 bucks for a cable, without knowing how well it works. I tried connecting the iPod using a normal iPod USB cable, hoping that at least I can get power that way and then use the "AV in" jack to get the music into the unit. Unfortunately this is not allowed: the unit simply refuses an iPod connected this way. Also the "AV in" part won't work without another special cable from Pioneer.
Finally we come to cabling. The unit comes with a big fat cable which plugs into the side of the mount instead of the unit itself. I find that useful because
1) The unit will then turn on/off automatically when power is applied/removed;
2) Since no cables is attached to the unit itself, it can be removed easily. BTW despite the size of the unit, attaching and detaching the unit to/from the mount is very easy.
In reality, however, there are a couple of problems.
First of all the unit must be rather finicky to power surge. When you turn the ignition key to the position whence power is provided to your car stereo and cigarette lighter etc, things are good and the unit will turn on automatically. But then when you actually start the engine, the power will usually go out momentarily and then come back on. This seems to totally confuse the unit, and often times it will turn off and won't turn on again. When you manually turn it on by pressing the power button, often times it will do a cold boot.
Secondly when the unit is powered via the big fat cable, some of the menu items (like "settings") are disabled. If this is for safety reason I find it draconian. Not allowing me to watch video? Maybe. But not allowing me to change some navigation settings? That's unreasonable.
Overall, the unit has potential. It is a small computer running Windows with a high resolution screen after all, with all the right hardware. It has many functions, but sadly in its current form it does not excel in any of them. I ended up using it mostly just as a GPS device, and for that one can get a much nicer GPS like Garmin or TomTom for $[...].
Let's hope Pioneer will continue to improve the firmware and come up with new updates.
11 of 12 found the following review helpful:
 Great Multimedia Car Device Dec 04, 2008
By M. Harewood
"New Era Nerd"
I received my AVIC F500BT yesterday, and I spent the longest 30 mins of my life waiting for the battery to charge just so I can turn it on. It is an absolutely amazing device as far as I have seen. I registered my Blackberry Curve with it and made a couple test calls. Perfect! I connected a SDHC 8gb card as well as a 2gb Usb drive to test out the Music and Video capabilites. Perfect! It actually plays much more video file formats than documented. I had converted a movie to MP4 to watch on it and I had a WMV on the card as well. Surprisingly both videos played well. Though the WMV had just a little lag, which I believe is due to the fact it was not converted to the correct frame rate designated for the device.
Copying my entire contacts list to the phone over bluetooth took less than 5 minutes.
Also most important is that the device is HUGE but not very heavy. It came with all the cables for having it fully installed to enable the parking restriction and rear view camera. But it can be used with just the car power adapter. The Speaker is quite low, BUT since my 08 CIVIC LX came with an auxiliary input and this device has a headphone jack.... I AM IN CAR ENTERTAINMENT HEAVEN. Their could not have been a better device for the under $400 price range.
Oh, did I forget to mention I purchased a 16gb sdhc card for this said device. IN CAR HARD DRIVE. I basically have Movies On Demand in My CAR!!!!
5 of 5 found the following review helpful:
 Good product but need improvements Feb 11, 2009
By J. Nunes
"Indyking"
There is already a very good and more detailed review written here by Ming Chan, which I agree with all aspects, but would like to add some extra information not addressed. I was in the market for a product to replace my old garmin (nuvi 750) and ultimately narrowed it down to the nuvi 780 and this pioneer product (AVIC F500BT). I needed something ready to receive traffic updates (provided by MSN for both products) and blue tooth connectivity to talk hands free using my iPhone. Both products offer these features but the better price and the larger screen size of the pioneer made me buy it instead of the Garmin 780. In addition, the pioneer offers voice recognition capabilities for phoning via bluetooth (not for navigation), which is not present in the nuvi 780. I do not use the voice recognition capabilities but other reviewers seem to agree it is not very helpful in this device. Anyway, first thing you have to know. This product is huge; it does not fit in a regular pocket unlike the garmin. I have no problems with its size but if you intend to carry it around with you, it may not be a good choice. It can fit a large womans purse or mid-size at best but my wife would not like it inside hers for sure. Also your visibility of the road may be somewhat impaired if you have a small car depending where in you set it on your dashboard or windshield. Again, it has not been a problem for me. It does come with a pad for mounting on the dashboard instead of windshield, which is not available in the nuvi 780. The cable that connects to the power source contains several extra wires that can be used to connect the device to your car stereo, but that requires professional installation and extra costs of course. The unit has a microphone and speaker, so you do not need have it connected to your car stereo unless you want it for better sound quality. I believe it does not have a FM transmitter like the nuvi 780 but this is something I do not use anyway, so I do not care. Connectivity with the iPhone is fast and conversation quality through Bluetooth is good, but could be better in my opinion. The MSN service (comes with a 3 month free trial) is helpful but there is lot of room for improvement; however, this is not the devices fault. MSN direct data is supposed to improve significantly in 2009 according to my research on the topic. The software updates are free but you need an SD card and a computer with a SD card slot connected to the internet, so if you do not have all of that, then other options are available from the pioneer website for a reasonable cost. The map that comes with it is outdated and as far as I know new maps and the cost of the update is not available yet but will become available sometime in 2009, not sure when. This is the major disadvantage of the Garmin since the later usually comes with the latest versions of their maps. Hope this helps.
4 of 4 found the following review helpful:
Pioneer Engineers needs to pay a little more attention Mar 03, 2009
By Omar Masood
Pros: Good screen size, excellent blue tooth.
Cons: Inability to change 2D North Up only, Not having a split screen.
This is an excellent Navigation system. I have used Garmin, Megallen, Pioneer before this one. It has lots of feature for the price. Screen size is excellent. I did not use IPOD connection.
As compared to other reviewers, I had pretty good experience, one reviewer has mentioned sound quality, initially it is a little difficult to figure out how to maximze the volume b/c there are several ways to do it. Once I increased the sound to max - I had to go back and decrease the volume. I agree with other reviewer that in 2D it always stays North Up so you have to make yourself used to this feature I will request to Pioneer to change it in future version upgrade or Map upgrade. In 3D mode there is a way to make it look like 2D by adjusting the orientation but zomming out is limited so it becomes virtual 2D with zoomed in / close up streets.
It has an excellent POI database 12 million & you can make the navigation display icons on the map - however unlike Pioneer it does not display specific logo/icons like M for McDonalds etc.
One feature I loved was you can click anywhere on Map - it will give you an option for info - once you click info it will give you the lat/log or address and then you can select this info as your next destination and it will route it - this was very helpful as while I was travelling I wanted to go to another community but I did not have address so I clicked on approx. point & the system showed me directions.
As for blue tooth connection it connected well with my Samsung cell phone - I did not read any instruction but was able to transfer all the phone book. As soon as I start navigation system - it automatically connected to my cell phone. Voice quality was good, It also connected to my cell phone while I was outside my car at approx 75 feet.
My system had firmware 1.0, I did not use hard wiring, I only used cigarette lighter to power the system & unlike some other user my system never went for cold start while going from ACC to start switch. Every time it caught satellites very quickly except once early in morning in one week, route recalculation was very quick, quicker then every other system I have used before, & time to destination was very accurate.
One issue I had was design flaw - the power button is on front & it does not come with carrying case like every other system on market. While travelling I put it with my laptop and during the whole flight it stayed on b/c power button is on front something will touch it and start the system. Since a lot of people travel with laptop - I think I do not have to worry about keeping it in pocket. In future if Pioneer provides a carrying case or change the location of power button it will be helpful. All buttons have backlight but I do not know why they have not kept the button symbols illuminated by backlight. Also the buttons can be moved on top and bottom of system instead of creating an extra 3 cm space on left side.
I was disappointed to see 07Maps in 09. I hope pioneer will provide updated maps, provide a better lane assist system, update system with "Destination on right or Left" provide option in 2D for Driving up instead of North up ONLY. Also if they can update the compass feature where it can give me 360 degree orientation like Megallen - I will give it 6 star rating.
See all 33 customer reviews on Amazon.com
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