How were it's routes compared to say Garmin and Tom Tom? The most important thing!

If you buy one of these units, can it be upgraded by Harman/Kardon via SD card or USB to computer or some other meens? Thanks
Mark

as Scott said,
where is the most important feature of this GPS unit reviewed ? (the routing engine)

..this is what makes all your reviews stand out!

Hmm... The reviewer forgot to mention that this units supports and plays subscription based music like Rhapsody, Napster, and Yahoo Music.

As far as I know Harman Kardon is the only manufacturer who's doing this. Does anybody else know of any GPS unit that has this ability?

Regarding: "Horrible Bluetooth support" are you certain that the 810's Bluetooth was failing? Perhaps the LG phone was not working properly or is not compatible. Don't they make refrigerators?

David - yes LG makes refrigerators. They also make PNDs.

Carlos - DRM is almost dead. Subscription music will be a thing of the past real soon.

uh....... why no routing review?

Yes, please do not forget this is a GPS page and we are interested in buying a GPS and your wonderful tests of the GPS, not of the rest of the features they 'throw up' at us rather than improving the base system itself or their cuctomer support or lowering the prices.
Please reply to this and retest the unit. thanks

I just purchased my HK 810. This is my "first" GPS, yet I've used others from rental companies and friends.

Let me begin by saying the unit is rather easy to navigate. I haven't tried the nifty remote yet. Seems a bit of a waste as I can reach the unit easily.

I have found that the routing is very good. In New Orleans I was sent through 4 U turns for no apparent reason. Of course, I had been to my destination prior and knew I shouldn't be turning around. Yet I did it just to see where the 810 would take me. That particular glitch was the only navigation glitch I found so far.

My problems are with the owners manual, which I cannot find. The none that comes with the unit is too basic. There is one online somewhere, yet if you go to HarmonKardon.com you wont be able to find it.

The music is weird. I signed up for their free downloads and got em on my 810. Yet, it appeared I was able to load my music of the ipod store iTunes. Yet none of that music shows when the unit is turned on unless it is plugged into my pc.

My largest concern is my Treo 700 bluetooth hook-up. I think the unit must not be compatible. I had attempted to get them to synch about 20 or so times and it looked like I had success. The phone book began loading. The obscure name I gave my Treo shows on the 810. The 810 shows on my Treo. The phone book failed to load and ALL my music disapeared off the 4MB SD card I had stored stuff on. I'm not sure if it is related, but it seems to be as my music is gone and was there up to the point of attempting to synch.

There are no accesories; microphone, antenae, etc. for the 810. If you do as I have, bought them for another name brand, you will need adapters.

Would I buy this one again? As a nav system it works great. No complaints. I just wanted the extras to be as strong.

The only two things that I like about this navi is the huge 12 million POIs and the wireless controller. It is cool how the GPS has Bluetooth but I probably wouldn't be able to pair it with my Apple iPhone since very few phones are supported, kind of like the TomTom.

Bluetooth is terrible. I tried with couple of phones and it drops frequently. You will have to pair again and again. For the world,, i couldnt figure out how to save a POI. There are no documentations around that. Other than all that,, for 279 at costco ( with the option to return), I am okay with it so far,, though it has an outdated map in Princeton, NJ area

It is great in short.

UI is amateur compared to my apple iPhone. (Just to go on little on sophistication level, the clock on iPhone is always shown, whereas on this, its hidden when "Other things are going e.g. Music. Also it does not show album art properly).

So its not the mirror breaking material but its the nice next door girl. Its reasonably stable, works and delivers (does the job).

Bluetooth works well with my iPhone. Why you say it does not. It picked up my phonebook, even my all previous call log.

Hi, I'm considering this unit to be my next navi but I would like to know some facts from the owners, could you please answer to these questions:

1) Is it possible to accept the safety warning when powering up just by clicking ok on the remote push button, instead of touching the screen?

2) Does this unit power on automatically when ingition goes on - and vice versa, does it automatically shut off when turning ingition off?

3) Can you see the actual speed on the display when navigating (and when not navigating)?

4) How are the POI's updated? I live in Finland, Europe and just want to be sure that I have a possibility to update the speed camera coordinates.

5) I wonder how the bluetooth handles connection to Nokia BT phones? I have a Nokia 6680 and I'd like to see a list of BT features H/K supports. What I have read, it looks like that the GPS-810 is not among the best BT capabilities... crashing, unpairing, it won't pick up the phonebook etc. Maybe a long promised firmware update would help, I wonder when is it going to be published...?

6) How can the user change/update navigation sounds? Is there just
one male/female sound for one language - or is it possible to add more of them? And how about changing sound effects when closing a POI? I don't want to listen to the same "boing" when closing up to a speed camera trap.

That's all for now, thanks for your replies. :-)

We have just bought this unit at Costco, for $279.99, which is a good price. We were impressed by the different functions you can use with it, video, music, photos.
For the navigation aspect, it has a very fast gps satellite link, and we really like how quick the screen responds to your touch. The only thing we noticed though, in case you get offf route, it will not say it as such, but rather announce that you have to go back, thereby too much u-turn suggestions. Also compared to a Garmin gps, when you finally arrive to your destination, it does not identify whether it is to your left or to your right. Garmin identifies it quite well. Bluetooth paring takes a while to occur, usually you will have to power off to make the pairing work again. We noticed that when we use the FM transmitter while listening to music and then a navigation route is being announced, the music is powered down alright but the volume for the navigation announcement is not loud enough when using the transmitter. It sounds well though if you just use the speakers alone of the gps unit. Over all, we think this is a nice gps unit in itself due to its other functionalities, but we will surely keep our old Garmin handy just in case it keeps on giving too much u-turns. Oh, by the way, Harman Kardon website says they use tele atlas for their mapping. We went to visit the Tele Atlas website but we did not see Harman Kardon on their listing for portable car navigation. We guess there are still kinks being ironed out somewhere there.

This HK gps810na unit we got had 3 options for the voice used in navigation. There is the male voice called Jason, which will not announce the street names. There are two female voices called Samanta and Samantha. They sound the same and these are the voices that announce the street names. I wish they would also have Jason voice announcing the street names too. Also, it would be nice if they will upgrade the speech syntax, just announce straight forward the turn or the drive route and drop the words " Prepare to turn..."it sounds so confusing.

Also on the HK website FAQ's they mentioned firmware updates slated first quarter of 2008, I wonder when that is happening, since it is going 2nd quarter already, and nothing is showing on thier website.

Well, I bought a 810 at Costco and it didn't even charge the battery so I am not happy with the quality. I am changing it for a Magellan.

I got this unit at costco for $279...first gps ever so I'm quite thrilled with all the features. when i realized i had to buy memory for the unit i started a search and was a little disappointed at the fact I'd have to spend more than $50 for memory...after a little searching i found 8GB sdhc cards for $35 after rebate @adorama.com, pretty nice. so far the unit has worked great, good signal with good directions. the touch screen is fast and menus are easy to use. the remote is great, feels good to the fingers (go figure) and is great for keeping your hand near the steering wheel if you put it on the right place (never know when you'll need two hands). bluetooth took quite a few tries to pair up but in the end it did pair up and my phonebook transferred with no problems....i was surprised it paired up with my blackberry (i think it's first generation)after reading about the problems with bluetooth. can't wait to pack this with pics, movies and music...

awesome little gadget

FYI FOR CANADIANS - Costco (in store) is selling the model "810NA" - which is the very same as the 810, but includes full North America mapping...
The kicker - it's only $180!!!!

FYI FOR CANADIANS - Costco (in store) is selling the model "810NA" - which is the very same as the 810, but includes full North America mapping...
The kicker - it's only $180!!!!

DISREGARD THE ABOVE 2 COMMENTS...it's actually the "310NA" - but the rest of the info is right...$180 in Canada Costco stores, with full NA mapping...