Reviews

I've had my 810 for over two years now and have only used it a handful of times. The battery life is awful, just awful. And don't even get me started on the mount. It breaks so easy. And when it breaks, forget about harman/kardon support. Finally I decided to just purchase a new mount, but guess what? HK no longer makes it. I had to order it from the UK! And that's not the worst part. About into a month of having it, it stopped turning on. HK said, "OK, we'll fix it!" So I excitedly sent it in. Folks, it was gone for 4 months. 4 months. And it wasn't fixed. It would always randomly decide to not turn on. Out of nowhere. It would usually start working about 10 days later. This happened literally 5 times. FINALLY, my nightmare is over. I sold it over the internet and what a great feeling. I sold it way cheaper than any other used 810's on here, simply because I wanted it out of my car and out of my life. Never in my life will I purchase something from HK. Never.

Harman sent the 810 to me after a GPS-510 warranty exchange. Have also previously used the Garmin Nuvi. Right off the bat the solid construction is noticable against other HK's and Garmins. The menu interface layout takes to you very naturally, which pays dividens when using while driving. Users can switch back and forth from mp3 playback to Map view with one click. This unit has guided me across the country,. it is packed with features, one major beef i have with feature-loaded personal media devices is they oftentimes lack the processing power to handle their tasks, or they compromise the navigation capabilities. The proc on the 810 offers plenty of speed and handles all the tasks you can throw at it, with no sacrifice to navigation. Being a Harman Product, its audio roots are notable, it delivers a much wider range of sound frequency than my girlfriends ipod touch when hooked up to the car stereo via the aux output jack. Sends distortion-free bass response to my 2x12" subs. (word of advice: use the audio jack built into the mount, not the one on the GPS itself) A few issues, I use this system 80% of the time as a car MP3 Player (8GB SDHC Transcend card) and 20% of the time for navigation. The system still insists on syncing up to the satelites before allowing me to use the mp3 player. I have owned the GPS for a year now and it is not clear to me how to update the maps, there is a firmware version out to adress some bluetooth issues. Synced fine with a KRZR and girlfriends blackberry pearl, but is hit-or-miss with my HTC Shadow. (if not for these issues the unit would have earned full 5 stars) For those who could care less about the media features, the Graphical layout of the map is refined and sophisticated. The best that i have seen thus far. Far better map graphics than Garmin's fisher-price rendition.

I bought this unit on the recommendation of the sales rep. and I liked the graphics & 4.3" large screen. I travel for a living and after experimenting with a GPS unit in a rental car, I decided I had to get a GPS for my travels. I've owned this unit for a little over a year now and here's my 2 cents: Battery life is terrible. ALWAYS bring the charger or you'll get left stranded. Sent my first unit in for repair/replacement of the battery because I couldn't believe it was so bad. Major nightmare (2 months +) trying to get it back; customer service excuses/countless e-mails/lost/inventory, etc. Freezes or locks up at the most inappropriate times. You'll need to bring paperclips to 're-set' it.. Which BTW, is really fun driving on the freeway trying to stick a bent paperclip into a pinhole sized hole to re-set it. And sometimes, you won't know it's locked up, it just stops refreshing which is hard to tell when the settings on airplane view. I've driven past an off ramp on the freeway at 75mph and after-wards, it tells me to exit? This really sucks when you're late for an appointment and now you have to drive 2 miles to the next off-ramp and u-turn. Twice I've tried to update the maps on line, and twice it COMPLETELY erased all (100's) of my saved addresses. Worked from home for two weeks and left it in the car, went to use it, (of course, the battery was long dead) and all the addresses were erased, AGAIN. No complete user manual available. Can't figure out how to keep the addresses from being erased all the time? Windshield mount isn't well designed either. It broke the first time I used it. And, because this GPS unit is so heavy, if it sits in the sun for too long (I live in So. California), it'll fall off the windshield. Thus, bouncing off everything until it hits the floor. For the price I paid for this unit, (retail is $400!!) it is junk. I'm going to get rid of it and get something else.

A great product and excellent after sales service from the company if you have any questions or nead updates. They are very willing to help.

Overall an excellent product. First the bad. The battery had a dead cell upon recieving it, but this was due to the fact it sat in a warehouse for a while. HK offers a fair warranty to fix this(still in the process of replacing so I can't comment too much about service#. The FM transmitter has terrible reception, even in my newer Mercedes-Benz with the expensive, full Harmon Kardon audio option from the factory. With that said, this is the best unit available for your money in its price-range. Incredibly fast, easy, and precise directions. Never a reception problem from satellites. Extremely versatile, but for the price and the company's available resources, i'd like to see one made for more rugged duty#weather resistance). The 810 has something for everyone. I would say this is a worthy investment. In my experience the unit is superior to all others; not that it has much competition anyway

Reviews

I've been trying to use this GPS for 8 months but will be replacing it with something that actually works. The Harman Kardon GPS-500 should never have been released for sale. The software locks-up frequently, even pressing the hard-reset sometimes does not help. Loading movies onto the device is nigh on impossible. The maps are hopelessly out of date and can't be updated. The program logic for entering an address almost never finds the address you are trying to enter. Be ready to take the least efficient route to your destination (that's if it actually works at all). You will need to press the touch screen buttons several times before the device reacts as the software is so slow. It defaults to California, not the state you are in. Support is non-existent. Harman Kardon should recall this product and give the money back. Its rubbish. The Amazon site insists that I give this device a rating and will not allow a zero-star entry so I have been forced to enter a 1 star rating which is one star too many. October 2008, Update: While driving to pick my wife up from work I thought I'd let the GPS500 navigate me to my destination, even though I knew exactly where I was going. While driving through Princeton I followed the device's directions. Interestingly, that's one thing you should never do with the GPS-500. A couple of minutes later it had me driving in circles around a dorm area of Princeton U. and was itself hopelessly confused. I had determined that I couldn't give the GPS-500 to anyone as it's so useless, so I proceeded to a nearby dumpster and liberated myself from this piece of junk. I haven't gotten lost since. I hope and pray that the device is never found by some unsuspecting person.

This thing got me lost so many times, I was much better off without it. It often chose ridiculously out-of-the-way routes, and also tended to send me on wild goose chases for restaurants that didn't exist. The maps are frequently incomplete and/or incorrect, and since it can't be updated it won't be long before it's totally useless. There's something to be said for name brands. Stick with the Garmin or Magellan, they've been in this business for a long time and they know what they're doing.

This device is great for travel I pack it in my travel bag for road trips and business trips. It is a great Media player dfor movies , TV shows and MP3's for long flights or layovers. The UI is great and easy to navigate. The out of box experience was a great one it comes with an AC adapter that converts into a USB charger (most of the other guys sell this as an additional purchase) and the car adapter. The mount is small and collapseble for easy storage in a glove box or handbag. The screenis a good size and the unit is thin and compact (easily fits in a shirt pocket. The design is what HK does best it is clean with a great finish, that just so happens to match the dash of my MIni Cooper! I have used this throughout the U.S and it has been a great experience it does not have TTS or all the bellls and whistles say a Nuvi 350 has but all-in-all a great unit for the price. When a took a road trip top Canda it got a little confused as it would tell me to turn left when I should ahve turned right and when I was exiting off of Hwy 1 it would not tell me if I should take the East or West HWy 1 so I ended up going in circles for a about an hur. The benefit of this was that I bypassed most of the bumper to bumper trafffic and hit my exit without having to sit in it. Final Thoughts: Great for travel but stay in the U.S.

I bought the H/K 300 for its price and its big screen. It's easy to read w/o putting on my reading glasses while driving. Sound quality is fine for my old ears. But....and this is a big one for me: it won't hold a charge for more than a day! And that's w/o turning it on at all. Moreover, I can't update maps, and there is a lot of building going on in my area. Would I buy one of these again. NO!

The setup is easy. You don't have to do anything. In lock position it follows you everywhere. Nice and bright touch screeen. you can even scroll the map by sliding your finger over it. I highly recomend it.