Maylong ML-500 5-Inch Personal Portable GPS Navigator
| Overall rating: |
|
Need to get where you are going easily, quickly, and accurately? Maylong personal portable GPS is the answer from Maylong Group – the Creator of the Maylong Portable GPS. About the size of a deck of cards, this device comes with the Maylong GPS Navigation software with the familiar and ease-of-use interface. ML-500 comes with the following features:Preloaded maps of the contiguous U. S. states with 1.7 million searchable points of interest, Visual and voice turn-by-turn navigation, so you can keep your eyes on the road while navigating, Backlit 5″ color LCD touch screen with 480 x 272 resolution for easy navigation in 2D- and 3D map viewing, Built-in software user interface with easy-to-use Dummies style for simple operation, Automatic re-routing calculation when off the original travel route, Included digital music player and digital picture viewer applications, Built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery with up to 4 hours life, USB plug-and-play for transferring data with your PC and charging the battery, Compact design for go-anywhere portability, Headphone jack, Accessories: car charger, suction cup mounting kit, and user’s manualPlease refer to complete warranty information and system specification at www.maylonggroup.com.
Features
- 5-inch color touch display GPS system with high-sensitivity GPS receiver for quick location fix
- Digital map with browsing capability, 2-D and 3-D map perspective
- Turn-by-turn visual guidance and voice directions
- The familiar, easy-to-use interface, complete with icons, leads you through the GPS navigation software user interface and user’s manual
- Entertainment features including digital music player, picture viewer and more
- Dimensions (W x H x L): 3 x 1 x 5 inches
- Weight: 0 pounds
Issues w/ the GPS signal strength
I’m not sure if I received a lemon or not, but I had some problems in using this product.
I live in a regular suburban neighborhood, and the GPS could not pinpoint my location. It kept displaying the city’s downtown location, which is about 20 miles away. Once I left my neighborhood, it was able to figure out my location. However, every once in a while I would loose the signal and it would give me the “waiting for GPS signal”. This occurred intermittently even when I was on the freeway and when the product was fully charged.
In the past, I’ve used the TOM TOM, so I’ll compare this product w/ that one. In terms of ease of use, it’s not too difficult to use. However, the application isn’t as versatile as the TOM TOM. Things like it will tell you if you’re speeding, but it won’t tell you what the speed limit is. It also doesn’t give you the option of a text direction, change of voice, and a time in which you wish to arrive by. In addition, w/ the TOM TOM I’ve never once lost a signal or gotten a “GPS signal too low” from where I live.
Another problem I had w/ this product was that whenever I entered the house number destination, I would receive an error that the address didn’t exist. So I needed to ignore the error and tell the GPS to go anyways to that address.
Overall, while the 5″ screen is nice and the option to link your bluetooth to it are great options. I had some qualms about using a product that would loose a signal even on the freeway and couldn’t figure out where I was located. My confidence in the product is so low that I would be afraid of being in the country side and loosing the signal.
This is not a product I can fully recommend.
Basic Nav with easy to use features
This is a good basic GPS navigation unit with a few extra feature thrown in. It includes street maps for the lower 48 and P.R., fairly up to date points of interest and a larger than the norm 5″ screen. Comparable in price and features to a Garmin 205/205w, it also offers storage and display of text format ebooks, photos and music. It comes with a USB connector, car charger and suction cup mount. I found this unit easy to set up and use (comparable again to the Garmin) with the limited instructions included and reasonably accurate for instructions (I had some problems in areas with close parallel roadways and frontage roads along expressways -but also had some similar problems with the Garmin). Travel directions were clear and advance instructions were timely. Like other GPS units in the same price range, the interface is relatively easy to use after taking some time in advance to familiarize yourself with it. I rated it four stars because of the features that come standard with it for the price, but a big setback to me was the inability to update the maps with an online update through the computer/USB. A GPS such as this is only as good as the maps in it, and if you use it in a area that has ongoing roadway construction and changes, the unit will go out of date fast enough. This unit was out of date for several roads within my metropolitan area, most of which would have been corrected with an update to the factory installed maps.
A Worthy GPS and Good Value
The Maylong ML-500 GPS is a very good product and as it’s competitively priced, should be given due consideration to those looking for a portable GPS system. I’ve only had this for a week so I’ve not completely put it through its paces, but I’ll provide my initial impressions up front and add additional comments as time passes (and as warranted).
There are a lot of pros to this gadget. First of all, pretty much everyone can use a GPS and I’ve found the portable ones make the most sense. The ML-500 does have a 5 inch widescreen (LCD) for excellent viewing. This widescreen also serves as a touchscreen for commands. This GPS is rugged with rubber completely around it. It’s also very thin–thinner than current blackberries. The system is pretty intuitive, which is good since the user’s manual is pretty skimpy. Still, even a beginner will be up and running with this GPS in short order.
The Navigation Main Menu contains three touch options–View Map, Let’s Go, and Options. “View Map” does just what you think it would and shows a map of your current location. You can adjust the map to one of three options (and this is also true of any routing you might do from the “Let’s Go” option as well). There is the 2D route following view (2 dimensional viewing with the direction you are traveling in in the “up” direction), the 2D-N route following view (2d viewing with North always in the “up” direction), and the 3D view which attempts to give some curvature to the earth. The 2D-N view is a nice option not all GPSs allow. From any of these navigation options, you can get back to the main menu by touching “menu”. “Let’s Go” is the nav option with most to describe and likely the one most often used. Touching “Let’s Go” gives four options (plus a “back” option and a “manage route” option–”manage route” allows the user to choose from the following: Turn-by-turn, Cancel route, route overview, avoid roads, detour, and multi-stop planner. Turn-by-turn simply provides the directions in text format, Cancel route cancels the route, route overview gives a map view of your route, avoid roads allows the user to input limits to the route (example–avoid routes that require ferry travel, gated communities, highways, toll roads, and user specified roads), detour enables the user to tell the GPS of an upcoming detour, and multi-stop planner allows the user to enter various stops along a route. These are all nice features and easy to use). The four options from the “Let’s Go” navigation are “Search Address”, “Search Places”, “Recent Places”, and “Address Book”.
“Search Address” allows the user to input an address for route planning/mapping. The user can enter this address by state/city first, street first, interesection, or “in other countries”. I believe the “in other countries” option is a bit mislabeled although I’ve not played around with it very much. It does allow you to set the map based on US locations (i.e., midwest, east central, mid-atlantic, etc) which I suppose could be useful. The state/city first option lets you enter the state in city via a qwerty touchpad (it’s a decent touchpad with fairly large letters/numbers–the 5″ screen helps) or “see list” which provides a list of states/cities. Street first just let’s you do the street input first (this can be a time consuming process due to a potentially lengthy search), and intersection allows you to enter a crossroad provided you enter state/city first. This is all fairly standard stuff as GPSs go. The system does a good job remember prior entries so as you go along, it’s less time consuming to enter the state/city.
“Search Places” allows you to search nearby places based on where you are, where you are going, where you want to go (enter any city), by place name, or browse. I found a pretty substantial list of places in the database when browsing. Browsing enables you to choose food, lodging, shopping, fuel/petrol, transport (airports, bus depots, trains, etc), and entertainment. Choosing browse by food provides three options: Coffee shop, restaurant, or winery. I would’ve preferred brewery to winery, but it’s a minor quibble. Restaurant allows you to choose “all restaurants” or restaurants by ethnicity and style (ex. American, Chinese, Mexican, brewpub (yes!), breakfast, fondue, burgers, chicken, etc). A minor complaint about this section, especially since many styles are included, is that there is no “page down” option. You have to scroll one at a time, which can be annoying. It is interesting to note that the closest Polish restaurant is 379 miles away from my current location. Browsing lodging gives a similar scenario to include all hotels or scroll down choices. All the browsing options do enable you to use the keyboard to narrow down choices in the scroll down. Shopping categories are bookstores (yes!), convenience, department, and grocery stores. The fuel browse option gives you a choice of gas stations, auto service/maintenance, auto dealers, and motorcycle dealers (and also rest areas). Transport browse option provides choices of airport, border crossing (?), bus station, train station, ferry terminals, park and ride, and parking garages. And the entertainment browse option allows you to choose amusement park, casino, cinema, park/rec, and performing arts. One additional minor complaint is that the list of places gives mileage away, but not direction. The “search places by name” option is useful and pretty quick and there is much to applaud here–this is a very functional GPS with a lot of flexibility.
“Recent Places” is useful as it enables a quick look-up and ID of places you’ve been recently and might need to drive to again. “Address Book” is equally useful as it enables the user to save addresses previously looked up for quick future route planning. In terms of the actual route management, this GPS performs well. Street names are pronounced in full by a computer generated (and somewhat choppy) voice. Turns are highlighted on the screen and in voice with enough advance notice (in general) to keep the driver calm. The user can easily magnify the route (zoom-in, zoom-out) at one touch. Satellite strength is given on the map in the form of an icon (as is battery life), you can identify your home base and then click on the home icon to head home (very handy). Satellite acquisition–which can be an issue with some systems–was always rapid with this system (thus far). Display in travel mode includes current street, distance to turn, distance to destination, and an option of arrival time, remaining time, and altitude. Very easy to use overall.
Lastly, the “Options” tab allows the following: walking mode, quicknav, demo, prompts, map options (night view, 3d view, map browsing, map display, gps info, and select map), general options (units of measure, language, time settings, display look/feel, help, and about). The ML-500 comes with the touchscreen device, a suction cup mounting kit (a pretty decent one), pre-loaded contiguous US maps, a small user’s manual, a USB cable, and a car charger. This system does not come with an AC-adapter/charger (although a blackberry charger will work; barring that, you can purchase a standard garmin GPS charger or a Maylong charger if you are particular). Otherwise, charging can be done in the car or via the USB/computer hook-up. The ML-500 also allows for some limited music, picture, ebook, and video loads and can act as a video player, music viewer, or mp3 player. There is an option to load a flash drive to expand these capabilities, but I’ve not tested any of these. The slim user’s manual fails to describe any of these additional capabilities and sticks to the GPS function only. This is a very good and economical GPS system with a lot of capability. Definitely recommended (4.5 stars).
Excellent at giving directions and helping you get the closest and (usually) the quickest route
I’ve been using this primarily to help me find the quickest route and to accurate give directions when I plan to go somewhere. For comparison’s sake, I’ve been using it for places where I routinely travel, whether for work or pleasure. My experience? It is very accurate when it comes to giving directions to and from specific locations.
However, when it comes to finding the quickest route, I’ve learned to make adjustments for rush hour and take alternative roads, highways, etc. The GPS doesn’t always make similar accommodations but the “quickest” route would probably hold true in most situations, except during the busiest times of the day.
It can always find me on a map, pinpointing my exact location. This makes it very easy to work from any location when it helps guide me from where I am to where I want to go.
The voice is pleasant but occasionally (as robots do) mispronounces street names. This isn’t a big problem because it is still easy to figure out the street names, especially as there is the map back-up which is easily visible.
The directions in the users’ guide were not completely “out of the box” intuitive but it is easy to set up. Using it is another story and you’ll want to read the users’ manual in detail. After that, it is very user friendly and doesn’t take long to learn.
For the price, it is one of the best bargains around for a good basic GPS. It does what it says it will do and should be perfect for anyone who travels or wants to get to new locations in their city and surrounding areas. It can be very helpful in finding the quickest way to a specific location when there aren’t any special events in town or when rush hour isn’t occurring.
To be fair, if you are testing it out on streets where you travel daily, you’re likely to know the best routes for certain times of the day. The GPS doesn’t but that is really a minor thing considering all the advantages of this GPS. Compare prices and you’re unlikely to find a better deal for what this does. It also has digital music capabilities, an extra bonus.
Good device, skimpy (as of now) support
Other reviews have gone in depth over features and such in great detail and they are pretty much on target. Here’s my take. Given the “no-name” (to me) I did not have high expectations. However the device seems well built out of quality materials. Operation is decent but menu system can use some refinement. For example, sometimes the buttons are too close to the edge making pressing them with the finger difficult. The included stylus of course works better.
Navigation was easy, prompts are given are appropriate times, all in all a useful easy to use device. Only once there was a glitch that pretty much was telling me to drive off a highway overpass onto the road below
One thing that caught my attention was the fact that there isn’t a support page for the ML-500 nor did there seem to be any map updates for any of the Maylong devices. But hopefully that would be remedied in the future. This is the reason for just 4 stars.
This one is a winner!
I have used GPS devices for a few years now. I have a handheld unit for hiking and geocaching, and a car unit. Both of these devices are by one of the Big Three GPS makers. My expectations for the Maylong ML-500 GPS were not high, as I believed a budget price and lack of name recognition signaled a lower quality unit.
Boy was I wrong.
Maylong ML-500:
PROS: excellent route selections, fast announcement of turns, Sleep mode, big screen, microSD expansion slot, slim depth, fast and strong satellite locking, Navteq map set.
CONS: confusing Date/Time selection, lackluster auto brightness adjustment, some unusual voice synthesis quirks. The cons are very minor.
The ML-500 GPS comes with a USB cable (it does charge via this cable, but would not with a different USB cable I tried, so be aware that the Maylong USB cable may be modified), a car charger, manual, and car suction mount/cradle. A stylus is included that slides into the bottom of the device. Very handy, as there is a touchscreen calibration function that will keep your screen aligned and this is best performed with the stylus. The box lists other accessories that are not included.
Input/output options include a USB port for charging (the car charger terminates in a USB mini-B connector), a microSD slot (for storing photos, music, ebooks, etc), a headphone connector, and reset button.
The ML-500 takes a few minutes to boot from a cold start. It is able to lock satellites indoors, which is always a noteworthy accomplishment. I locked 6 satellites in my living room. Now, I don’t need to navigate anywhere while inside, but I do interpret this as a sign of a good quality of GPS chip.
The ML-500 has a big 5″ LCD touchscreen. It is bright and sharp. The device is very thin, less than 1/2 in. in thickness. It has a good weighty feel, without being heavy.
The Main menu presents options for Media, Let’s Go, and System.
Media provides utilities for viewing photos and videos, Ebook (.txt format), and Music.
System settings include Volume (also accessible from the main Navigation screen), Power (showing charge level), Backlight (increase/decrease, or auto adjust checkbox), Date Time, Language (vast number of languages offered), and System Info. (software versions, USB mode, and Calibration functions). Time can be obtained from the satellites, but my initial setting was off. Then, I set to the current time at my location. My arrival times were off, so I had to set to an hour earlier and then select the DST (Daylight Saving Time) checkbox. I’m still not sure that is all ok. Date/time setting is a bit muddled on this device.
Let’s Go is your main navigation application. It takes a moment for this to load. Once loaded, you then can select to View Map (you can zoom out or in, drag the map to a new location, etc., very handy feature), Options (below), Let’s Go (select again to start navigating), or Quit back to the Main menu.
Options include a toggle Walking/Vehicle mode, set Quick Nav category that lets you specify a type of destination you can get directions to from the Main navigation screen), Demo, Prompts (when the GPS verbally announces Speed Warning-sounds good but very annoying when on, Route Recalculation, Weak GPS Signal, GPS Not Found), and Spoken Names/Numbers/Both, Day/Night view (pleasant dark background for nighttime navigation), 2D/3D view, Map Browsing/GPS mode, Map Display options (select which icons appear on the Main navigation screen for quick toggles of various functions), GPS Info (very cool space-view of satellites locations and locks, altitude, and current long/lat coordinates), Select Map (different regions are loaded as needed), Units of Measure, Language, Time Settings, Look and Feel (skins [only 1 available], keyboard mode, day/night auto adjustment), Help (simple operating instructions and troubleshooting), and About (more software information and trademarks). There were no choices of different voices or car markers.
Some observations: Yes, there are 2 places to access time and language settings. I don’t quite get this … leads to some confusion. I found the auto adjust backlight to be disappointing as I transitioned from car to street. The screen was too dim to view easily at my original setting). I also found the Walking Mode to be less than useful … as I arrived at my destination which the device announced, then had to find parking, then needed to be guided back to my destination, I switched to Walking mode and expected to be guided to it. I was not. I will need to investigate the use of this function further.
So how does the ML-500 work as a GPS? Simply, this is an excellent GPS unit. Compared to my Garmin 255WT, the Maylong announced turns more quickly, though it did not give long term directions (e.g., stay on this road for 10 miles). Recalculations were about the same in terms of the devices recovering from wrong turns. The Maylong chose more “major” highways for fastest route, and these were better selections in each case. Oddly, the Maylong tended to announce “St” as “Saint,” however, this could be because the actual road name was followed by a W for West.
Totally coolest feature: when you press the Off button, you can choose Sleep or Turn Off. When you put the device to Sleep, it pretty much comes back on instantly to whatever screen you were on when you turned it off. Very handy, as the boot and application load times can take several minutes. Presumably, like with your computer, Sleep does consume power, so I would not choose it for long-term shutoffs, as you will likely come back to a dead battery.
As Maylong is something of a newer player, there is some question about receiving map updates. Any GPS should offer, at a minimum, one map update in the first year as a free support feature. This is competitive with other major players. Maylong should also consider a lifetime update option as well.
If you are in the market for a good value in a great performing GPS, you absolutely should consider Maylong. I found this unit to outperform a comparable Garmin GPS.
I am really enjoying my ‘toy.’
I am really enjoying this product. I got it and was able to get through much of it right out of the box. There are some interesting features, could use a few more things, like a carrying case or belt clip for the walking gps and music features.
It is like a large iPod, although there are only a limited amount of music to download, however, if you are still stuck in the world of CDs, you can save them when you travel and are not in need of the GPS to ‘get you there.’ I have loaded about 200 of the songs I like from my CDs to my GPS program.
There is room for photos as well. It is handy if you wish to at least have a couple of pics to show when you are on a trip. Additionally, there is a video and ‘eBook’ section too. The eBook section is for text only files. Convenient if you are traveling and want to take one or two books with you. However, you may need to delete a song or two to do so.
The Navigator works well and has standard tools and selection processes to get you to the destination you want. The keyboard function is really good. Wish the BlackBerry Key Board was that good on its first delivery.
The voice is not annoying and if you decide to go a different way than what they tell you, it does not tell you it is recalculating, it will just let you know the next turn or so until you get into sync with the program.
The voice is a little odd at times. It says Boulevart instead of Boulevard, and does not usually pronouce words properly in some streetnames. However, if you look over that, it is pretty good. Turn on right on x street coming up in .2 miles. Things like that are cool.
I think it has a lot of great features and is easy to handle and to carry. The holder is sturdy and you do not have to worry about the device falling out of the holder. Since I live in Cali, I will not be able to attach it to my windshield, however, I am looking for a good place for it and the holder has the ability to be adjusted so you can view the device if you hang it at an angle.
Overall, I am very satisfied with this device. My wife will just love it when she is somewhere away. It saves your favorites, your home and other locations as well. If you are lost, just press home, and you are on your way. Just one thing, when you use the demo, don’t have your home location save yet.
The instruction manual is simple and straightforward. So, if you miss something out of the box, you can get caught up quickly. But, plug and play should work pretty good. I like the feature where when you connect with the computer you are charging the system, even when you are downloading.
Well, enjoy the MayLong GPS Navigator