The 500 is a great stand-alone bike computer that allows you pretty tremendous flexibility in terms of what you track on your ride. There are three fully-customizable ride screens, each holding up to 8 lines of data. You can run one or two or three, and so on if you want. The 500 isn't telling you what data should go with other data. You can choose it on your own. You want to run temperature and cadence? You can do it. As the unit comes, you can get times, temperature, altitude, gradient, speed, cadence, and all the combinations you can think of in terms of averaging. You can pair up the 500 with any ANT+ enabled powermeters, which at this moment means iBike, PowerTap, Quarq, and SRM, and add power data as well.
The 500, while GPS-enabled, does not have mapping capabilities on the computer, so you can neither see a map nor have it dictate a route. The unit also doesn't have a virtual training partner feature. It will, however map your coordinates so you can see the ride after it's over.
The Edge 500 measures 1.9in wide by 2.7in high by .85in deep (4.8x6.9x2.2cm). The display size is 1.17in wide by 1.44in high (3.0x3.7cm). The display resolution is 128x160 pixels. The unit is powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery that will get up to 18 hours on a charge. Available only in Red in this package. It comes with two handlebar mounts.