7. Finding An Address

Figure 26: 810's Start-up Splash Screen

Harman/Kardon's Guide + Play logo appears the every time you power on the 810. It takes about 15 to boot up to the warning screen. Waking the GPS from standby mode takes just a second to be ready for use.

Figure 27: Legal Disclaimer

The warning appears on power up and returning from standby mode.

Figure 28: Navigation Menu - Entering a Destination Address

Once the GPS has finished powering up, and the warning disclaimer has been accepted, it takes a few seconds for the unit to find a signal before displaying the Navigation menu.

The first step in entering a destination is tapping on Plan a Trip, as shown above in figure 28.

Figure 29: Choosing Where To Go

Tapping on Plan a Trip causes a sub-menu to appear, as shown above. You are given quite a few options to choose your destination. Place takes you to the Points of Interest Menu. In this example I'll be entering a street address, so I'll tap on Address to continue.

Figure 30: Searching for the Address

You can either choose an address in your current city, another city in the same state, or another location entirely. Because Hawaii's cities are small and very close together, I choose City in Hawaii.

Figure 31: Entering the City Name

Harman/Kardon uses the smart spell text entry system that eliminates unnecessary letters. This system is fantastic and the letters are a great size. I never had a problem entering in an address. For those not familiar with this type of system, It will only light up letters of cities in the state. Once you enter in enough letters for the system to narrow down the city names to a small list.

Figure 32: Choosing the City from a List

In this example I'll be navigating to a street address in Hawaii, so I entered Aiea into the system. After only two letters, I was given a list shown above.

Figure 33: Street List

Entering in the street works the exact same way as entering the city. You use the smart letter system to narrow your choices down.

Figure 34: Entering the Street Number

Lastly, you enter in the street number. You won't get a list for this, so it's best to know the exact street number. However, if you don't know it, it will still navigate close to the area. When you're finished entering in the street number, tap Done.

Figure 35: Confirm Address

Once you're finished inputting the address, tapping Go starts navigation to the destination address. Tapping View Map displays an overview of the planned route. Tapping Simulate lets you simulating driving through the entire route. The route can also be saved.

After tapping Go, the 810 begins calculating the best route to get from the current position to the destination address.

Route calculation is extremely fast. The unit can calculate a route almost instantly. This is probably the fastest route calculation I've seen. On average the unit was ready to start navigating within 1-2 seconds.

Figure 36: Viewing the Turn-by-Turn List

The Harman/Kardon 810's interface could use some streamlining; getting to some of the options requires excessive menu navigation. For example, to view the list of upcoming turns, you have to click Menu -> Route Options -> View turn-by-turn.

This also brings me to one other small annoyance: the 810 lacks some of the route features we've seen on other units in its price range.