The Nokia 500 Auto Navigation system is equipped with a SiRF StarIII LP GPS receiver and comes preloaded with Navteq maps of North America and millions of points of interest. The user interface is different from the Nokia 330 as the company switched from Route 66 Navigation 7 software to Smart2Go software, which is now Nokia Maps. Overall, we like the Nokia Maps software better than Route 66. The Nokia 500 menus and icons are clean and clear; It's not as easy to use as a Garmin or TomTom device. For example, entering addresses requires extra taps and finding various features and settings is sometimes like a treasure hunt. The tools aren't always organized logically, so you never know where you're going to find things.

To start planning a trip, you can enter a specific address with the Nokia 500, choose a point of interest, or select a location from your Favorites or Recent lists. The Favorites menu also allows you to save your home and work addresses, and strangely, this is where you can plan multi-destination trips. Having this feature in the Favorites submenu doesn't really make much sense to us, but nevertheless, you can plan journeys with multiple stops and name and save the trip for later reference. You can also add waypoints on the fly.

The Nokia 500 can calculate routes by shortest distance or fastest time and has various transportation modes, including bicycle, motorcycle, pedestrian, van, and scooter. If you want to avoid freeways, toll roads, and ferry ways, there are options to cut these out of your trip. Once a route is calculated, you can review the itinerary and find an alternate route if you wish. With the integrated traffic receiver, you can also check for congestion or incidents along the way and find another way around it. The system features automatic route recalculation if you happen to get off track.