Best Buy Ratings and Reviews

Best Buy Ratings and Reviews

Customer Reviews for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

This product is no longer available. Continue shopping at Best Buy.

Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Model: GPS-810
SKU: 8540518
UPC: 028292589348
Turn-by-turn maps, spoken directions and a full-featured video and music player ensure that this portable GPS navigator gets you from here to there and lets you enjoy your music and video when you're on the go.399.99
Average Customer Rating:
4 out of 5
4.0
 out of 
5
(23 Reviews) 23
Open Ratings Snapshot
Rating Snapshot 23 reviews
5 stars
12
4 stars
5
3 stars
2
2 stars
2
1 star
2
78% of customers would recommend this product to a friend 
(
18 out of 23
)
Customer Reviews for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS
Review 1 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Nice GPS

Customer Rating
4.0 out of 5
4.0
Posted by: erix
from Sugar Land, TX
on 04/22/2009
What's great about it: good design, nice interface, solid built
What's not so great: firmware update is a must
once i updated the firmware, everything works fine
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 2 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Great Product for the Price

Customer Rating
4.0 out of 5
4.0
Posted by: Boychadie71
from Greensboro, NC
on 04/21/2009
What's great about it: 4.3 Inch Screen, It reads street names, blue tooth, speakerphone, remote control, will transmit GPS through the radio
What's not so great: blue tooth will not transmit through car radio, only through speaker on GPS unit
I did alot of research on GPS units & this one is by far the best one for the money!
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 3 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Best GPS for what "ALL" it can do!!!

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: LeoGH
from Charlotte, North Carolina
on 04/21/2009
What's great about it: very easy to set up, easy to follow, loud speaker,GREAT PRICE!!!
What's not so great: haven't experienced any yet!!
Good quality-very attractive-looks very expensive (well it was), love the wireless remote knob! I actually bought another one just for back up...love it...recomended it to all my people!!!
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 4 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

worst gps ever

Customer Rating
1.0 out of 5
1.0
Posted by: jonboy26
from AL
on 03/26/2009
What's great about it: easy to use
What's not so great: maps are not accurate at all!
This would be a great device if it had accurate maps. It shows my house a quarter mile away, past another street! That was about as close as it has got to anything I have entered. You can't save your current location, or enter gps coardinates. Not worth the money.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 5 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

very good gps

Customer Rating
4.0 out of 5
4.0
Posted by: Anonymous
from merced, ca
on 01/13/2009
What's great about it: Processor is very fast, it shows all important navigation information w/out going into another menu.
What's not so great: battery life is really short.
As far as navigation is concerned, this is the best product in the market for a number of reasons; processor is real fast- it only take seconds after turning it on, quickly receive satellite signal; displays all important navigation information w/out going into sub-menu(such as distance remaining towards destination, shows arrow for the next turn, shows state road name and number) , has more point of interest (over 12mil) route recalculation is very quick, map and street names are clearly detailed, one thing unique is that it is capable of rerouting succeeding turns at users preference, you can also determine addresses by tapping the screen and it shows point of interest within the area and most of all, if your enter for instance street name or city name this unit automatically eliminate letters that are not used in the category you are searching so it greatly saves time and is very accurate. Most importantly due to its processor quickness, I am using this unit as a telephone directory because it almost has all the list of businesses and tel. numbers that i usually go. If not only by the very short battery life, I would have rate this product 5.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 6 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Not-so-much

Customer Rating
2.0 out of 5
2.0
Posted by: chinyc
from Chicago, IL
on 04/30/2008
What's great about it: attractive, good mounting hardware
What's not so great: ridiculously short battery life, poor upload of phone numbers, delayed turn by turn guidance
I'm actually quite disappointed with this unit and am returning it shortly. I bought it for its slick, easy, to use interface in entering directions which was much like the unit built into my previous car which was fantastic.
However as your driving, the unit may randomly turn into a globe view without warning and seems to show literally, a globe, from the artic tundra through central Mexico as I'm driving through downtown Chicago. Scary!
Also, I bought this for its bluetooth interface, but it clearly does not play nice with an iPhone, and all the numbers uploaded, but all names are scrambled messes of dozens of random letters and numbers.
In addition, there's a bit of lag on some directions, and I find myself passing the exits and then being prompted to turn. The map suggests that I can turn of Lake Shore Drive (a major thoroughfare - with barriers) at any point.
The mounting system is awesome, and I wish I could keep that for the new system. Also I like that I can have two voices, but one doesn't note street names, it just says, make a left, make a right, etc. Why would that be included? Ohh, and the users guide is poor and the troubleshooting portion seemed to miss everything I needed to troubleshoot.
The bottom line is that this unit is really unintuitive and a disappointing purchase. I'm glad I bought Best Buy's extended plan. I'm not a fan of Garmin's interface, but have a feeling I'm without much choice to head back to Best Buy and pic one of them out. . Caveat emptor.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 7 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Good GPS

Customer Rating
4.0 out of 5
4.0
Posted by: BlueBear
on 04/21/2008
What's great about it: Easy to use, nice features
What's not so great: From time to time the street name is annouced wrong.
Sometimes when announcing the name of streets it will say the wrong street name, but if you look at the unit the correct name is written on the unit right. Doesn't happen a lot but from time to time. Other then that works great, easy to use, lots of nice features, works for us........
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 8 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

nice unit

Customer Rating
4.0 out of 5
4.0
Posted by: jam78
from Seattle, wa
on 04/16/2008
What's great about it: many POI's, mp3 nice, altimeter in gps menu
What's not so great: bluetooth connectivity, fm transmitter, recalculation lag, no upgrades or POI's available on the harmon website
nice product but make sure your cell phone is bluetooth compatible before buying, fm transmitter sucks in the city but works fine in the countryside, dead reckoning lag when you make a wrong turn, no way to correct maps, they're outdated, three wrong streets from my house to work, that's terrible!! needs more than 2 voices
overall, when navigating from point A to point B, no hiccups..
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 9 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

blah

Customer Rating
1.0 out of 5
1.0
Posted by: Remus
from Northridge
on 03/24/2008
What's great about it: nice, good mp3 sound, good screen, easy to use, really good features and smart
What's not so great: CRASH CRASH CRASH. Slow on video play, slow overall
3 crashes in one day... slow when moving between mp3/video/gps.
Will return it... and get a Garmin C550.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 10 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

5 stars, but not 100% perfect...

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: PowerJunkie
from LA / Orange - California
on 03/16/2008
What's great about it: FAST and ACCURATE navigation / mp3's / bluetooth / ...
What's not so great: FM transmitter is terrible / .wmv videos skip bad / ...
This unit gets 5 stars because it's navigation and bluetooth are excellent! I come from having a Garmin and this H-K blows it out of the water. Navigation is very fast and accurate, plus the 12 million POI's is a BIG plus :)
For videos I use mainly .wmv formats and I just cant get them to play properly, they skip around so bad it's not worth it at all. I tried many different encoding methods with the same results. I've read several other reviews here where others have talked positive about it, I'd like to know what format they are playing ???
FM transmitter I've got to work once, in an isolated area, but that's it. It's so weak I'm going to have the GPS hard wired in to my stereo deck instead. There's nothing wrong with FM transmitters when they work properly, my Sirius Satellite works very well on FM, but not the GPS.
The bluetooth phone function works AWESOME! It was a bit tricky to get the two pieces to talk to each other at first, but once I got it, it connects every time easily. The built in microphone could use a boost, but I'm going to wire in a mic to the cradle to make it better.
The battery has died on me a couple of times to where the unit just will not work, today I had to push the reset button just to get it to start charging, it would do it no other way. It would not start even under direct power. Being very conscious of the status of this unit is a must, especially if you intend to use for anything mission critical, check it a day ahead of time.
Have a really small pin that fits in the reset hole handy. Don't wait until you need it, and then start searching :)
I tested the 'you know what' out of this unit, every feature, all the maps and navigations and even though I found some shortcomings it is overall an EXCELLENT navigation piece, and for that it gets 5 stars.
I would not recommend it to anyone that's not tech savvy, or at least willing to learn a bit about this unit and how to get past some of its issues. There are units out there with less features, therefore less things to go wrong, that may suit some others better. For me I'm happy with the purchase.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 11 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Could have been the best...

Customer Rating
3.0 out of 5
3.0
Posted by: dsarmed
from Roseville CA
on 03/12/2008
What's great about it: Stylish, quality, plays mp3's, video's, remote...
What's not so great: Poor connectivity, poor navigation...
If they figure out the bluetooth problems, update the navigation map to be more accurate, improve the fm transmitter, then this unit will hands down be the best nav in the market. For now, its just a great gadget.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 12 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

NO INSTRUCTIONS BUT STILL A GREAT BUY

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: ELOVE
on 02/27/2008
What's great about it: A LOT OF GREAT FEATURES
What's not so great: Got to figure out everything on your own, waste a lot of time.
I don't understand how a great product comes with out detailed instructions. The unit has great features but you have to try to figure them out on the go. I have never owned a gps unit before but this has taken me to every destination except for three. The three that were off was because the map was out of date.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 13 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Poor

Customer Rating
2.0 out of 5
2.0
Posted by: TimB123
from Bend Or
on 02/25/2008
What's great about it: Connectivty
What's not so great: Poor nav map
I like everthing but the Nav. It's missing streets, can't locate my home address, got us lost and going around and around the block. at one time it started spinning ( it did not know witch way we ware going. We had to stop and ask how to get on the freeway in seattle Wa. As for as the sound it can't compair with my cowen. All in all It just can't do as advertized. I called support and they told me that no fix is avalable.
No, I would not recommend this to a friend.
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 14 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

best GPS ever

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: raja
from pittsburgh
on 02/25/2008
What's great about it: everything, loud speaker, fm transmitter, can hear music and navigation same time
What's not so great: none
This is the far best GPS I ever tried compare to garmin (too pricey and slow interface), mio, tom tom, hp. Harmon kardon is the best GPS on the market, I did almost six months of research ( tried some and played with every single one of them) before buying this one on very good sale price from best buy.
This GPS has lot of good features such as automatic smart zoom when making a turn, bright screen, loud speaker, embedded traffic antena, fast rerouting, fm transmitter, 12 mill. points of interest, FAST INTERFACE,very accurate, easy to use, best of all you can listen to music and navigation at the same time through your car speaker with built in fm transmitter.
I will highly recommend this gps.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 15 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Great GPS

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: Bradshark
from New York
on 02/20/2008
What's great about it: Great Screen, Easy to Use
What's not so great: Owners Manual not written Yet
Looked at lots of others and this met my needs. Great location information, ie banks, restaurants, gas stations, etc. Even was able to loacate car washes!
A must have!
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 16 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Awesome Product

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: Vette75
from Dover, PA
on 02/19/2008
What's great about it: Wireless Remote, Video, Music and Great Connection
What's not so great: Mounting bracket is poor quality
Harmon Kardon does it again!!! After looking for months to decide which gps to buy I found the gps 810 to be the dynamite package. Has all the toys and very customer friendly to use. I did have a defective mounting bracket in the first purchase but Best Buy exchanged it with no hassle. The bracket is made poorly at the ball connection but this did not stop me from the exchange since the unit is awesome. In short terms, if you want a reliable unit with all the toys then buy this unit. I look more now for my next vacation so Harmon Kardon gps 810na can guide me safely to my destination.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 17 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

BEST!!!

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: Phuong
on 01/29/2008
What's great about it: BEST GRAPHIC FOR MAP, AND FOR VIDEO!!
What's not so great: NONE
AND YES, YOU CAN UPDATE .... THIS IS REALLY NICE GPS , IT HAS EVERYTHING YOU NEED.. YOU CAN WATCH VIDEO, MUSIC, PHONE,, WHILE YOU DRIVING..
VIDEO IS AWSOME I BOUGHT 16GB SD MEMORY, YOU CAN STORE MOVIES TOO
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 18 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Okay, but not great

Customer Rating
3.0 out of 5
3.0
Posted by: keyframe
from orlando
on 01/23/2008
What's great about it: Plays videos, music, FM radio, image viewer..remote control
What's not so great: Not update, no way to update it.Poor quality of sound
It looks great, it feels great, is build great..but...the main function for what this item was build is basic...the Navigation...If you want a very good update accurate navigation system, go with Garmin.
Harman Kardon is not prepare yet to make gprs..the navigation unit is basic , a lot of missing streets, businesses, exits..etc. but nice graphics...there is no way for you to update it.
Before this unit i had a Garmin C580 and it was an amazing gprs..but I wanted more the a gprs...
If you want not just a navigation unit, then this product is good...it has a lot of features..remote control, I don't recall to see other manufacture with this futures, mp3 player, Mpeg, big screen...and I will say good price...the sound is very very poor..i was expected a crystal sound from HK...All in one is a nice unit but not a great GPRS...It a nice gadget.
I would recommend this to a friend!
-1point
0out of 1found this review helpful.
Review 19 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

all the bells and whistles

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: stevenna
from texas
on 01/14/2008
What's great about it: blue tooth, mp3, lag free zooming, price. remote
What's not so great: fm transmitter, no user manual
I traded in my civic with honda navigation for a car without navigation and I was lost the next day. I purchased this gps model after comparing it to similarly priced models. It has all the features for $ 100 less than comparable tom tom. I found this unit easy to use. The menu's are clear and easy to navigate. I was impressed that this was the only gps I played with that had almost lag free zooming and scrolling. And a remote control. How cool is that? You turn the top of the remote to scroll in and out. Blue tooth works perfectly and we have found that it sounds crystal clear on the other end without having to yell. I thought I was going to miss my mp3 card reader in my civic, but to my surprise this has a sd card slot. All I had to do was plug my card in and I had all my music files. I Put a few pictures on the card and they look great on this unit. It even has a slide show. One of the deciding factors was that this has an fm transmiter. This was important because I was already losing a built in navigation unit and I did not want any more wires stretched across my dash. The only way I could get it to work was when I plugged in an audio cable into the output jack on the gps. It must act as an antenna. If I have to do that then I might as well plug the other end into my aux jack on my car radio. But there is no information in the start up guide. It says to check online manual, but there isn't one on the web site. But all in all I love this gps. I does it all. I am very happy with it and absolutley would recomend this to anyone.
I would recommend this to a friend!
0points
0out of 0found this review helpful.
Review 20 for Harman Kardon GPS810 Portable GPS

Harman Kardon GPS810 GPS

Customer Rating
5.0 out of 5
5.0
Posted by: Anonymous
from Southern California
on 12/30/2007
What's great about it: Excellent user interface ,Fast, accurate GPS performance; good mapping capabilities,Easy music and video playback
What's not so great: Minor lag during some operations,Limited video format compatibility,No sleep or low power standby function
The GPS-810 has the same features you'd get on any of the top-end models from Garmin,TomTom ect.,including bluetooth connectivity, traffic data capability (from TMC Clear Channel), and an FM transmitter that will deliver both directions and music through an open channel on your car's stereo system.
Navigation
The main purpose of any car GPS device is to take you reliably from point A to B. Here the GPS-810 performs nicely indeed, providing several options for finding your destination. To get going you can select either a street address, a specific point of interest such as a gas station or restaurant, a recent or saved destination, a zip- code, or an intersection (if you're not sure of the exact address). To speed up text entry, the unit employs an intelligent auto-completion feature that displays only the letters that spell an item in its database. This greatly reduces the letters from which you have to choose to tell it where you want to go.
Once it knows where you are headed, the pnd offers you the choice of shortest distance or most use of freeways or other high-speed arterials. You'll also find a trip planner that lets you layout and save multiple destinations, as well as avoidance choices for routing your trip away from borders, toll roads, unpaved roads,and more. If you take a wrong turn or need to use a detour, the GPS-810 will automatically re-route you.
Now how well the GPS-810 perform out on the road? In a word,admirably. The responsiveness of the device and excellent user interface make it very simple to use. The GPS-810 also has an extremely fast and accurate GPS signal processor, so it locks, calculates and recalculates routes, and responds to commands quickly. In most cases, the device decided on logical and efficient routes,with easy to understand traffic data. Something that can't be said of other GPS devices I Checked out.
Setup and Interface
User-freindly interface is easy to operate.
Interacting with the GPS-810's touchscreen is delightfully intuitive and reliable. The division of the main interface into four main quadrants is a helpful touch. Instead of drilling down through lists of icons, all of the GPS-810's options are presented on simple, color-coded shapes.The menu lets you switch quickly between music, video, and navigation options.
The screen itself is sharp and clear, offering great resolution and clarity in all driving conditions. The map screen is a sight to behold, offering delightfully crisp 3D images, as well as excellent responsiveness when zoomed and panned. Likewise, the interfaces for music and video playback are pleasantly uncluttered, responsive, and well thought-out. One problem though, was the lack of a sleep mode. The device's screen will stay on at full illumination when it's left idle--even when running on battery power. There's also no sleep button on the device.
Most GPS navigators have a single microphone located in the center of the device, which can make you sound garbled on other end. The GPS-810 has two microphones, one on each side of the device, so both passenger and driver can use the hands-free phone kit and come through clearly.This hands free phone setup really works. Also, Harman Kardon has installed the same kind of noise-canceling system they use in their high-end audio products, to further enhance intelligibility.
Multimedia
The GPS-810 strives to be much more than just another GPS device. With support for MP3 and WMA music files, the music player has very good sound quality. It's a cinch to browse music on your SD card by artist, album, genre, playlist, and song. Another nice touch is that you can keep the music playing while the unit is in navigation mode. Pictures look great on this unit Resoulution is 4096 x 3072,12.5 megapix
Video playback is equally straightforward. The device recognizes WMV9 or MPEG-4 AVI video files and presents them in a scrolling list. Viedos play with smooth framerates and minimal jitters during high-action sequences.
To ease some of the pain of getting your movies and TV shows into the right format for the GPS-810, Harman Kardon provides a brief guide for Windows Media Player users.Lastly, battery life when playing back videos was surprisingly good. After a two-hour movie the GPS-810 was only down to a 40 percent charge.
Design
The GPS-810 is solidly built,and it instills a sense of confidence that it can survive the bumps and bruises that come along with the mobilelifestyle.The clean lines of the GPS-810 are enhanced by a complete lack of buttons; all interaction with the device happens between the touchscreen and your finger.
The only button you'll find on the device is the recessed power button on the top, right next to the SD card slot. The slot accepts cards with up to 4 GB of capacity.(including the new hdsd cards) There's also a small jog wheel on the right side for volume and display brightness control. Below this dial you'll also find a mini-USB port that serves double duty for both charging and PC-to-device data transfer.
All in all I would reccomend this gps. Best Buy had the best price also 539.99.
I would recommend this to a friend!
+2points
2out of 2found this review helpful.
1 2 next>>