GPS Devices Life

After much searching, a great GPS found in the C320 - Mitac Mio¿ C320 Car GPS Receiver I have owned 2 varients of Garmin (both were excellent) a Lowrance (also a great GPS), A Pioneer Avic-S1 (the wors...

Mitac Mio™ C320 Car GPS Receiver Product MIO C320 Key FeaturesDesignationAutomobileForm FactorFixedMap capabilitie...

The Mio DigiWalker C320 is a Radio Shack exclusive. Like many people, I bought mine on Black Friday when they offered it for half price at $149.99.

In the box, you get the GPS unit, car charger, device holder, suction cup mount, optional dashboard base, and a DVD containing backup files and full users manual.

The C320 overall dimensions are 4.21” x 3.15” x 0.91” and weighs in at 6.7 oz. The screen has a diagonal measure of 4.3”. The unit has 1GB internal memory, with a SD memory expansion slot, built in speaker, 2.5mm headphone jack, and a 1300 mAh Lithium-Ion battery. The GPS unit comes with full maps of the entire USA (including Alaska and Hawaii) pre-loaded.

Right off the bat, I noticed that a couple of important accessories were not included. The first being a USB cable which would allow you to charge the C320 thru your computer’s USB port and more importantly, to allow you to restore files from the backup disc if you should ever need to. The USB cable, by the way, uses the 5-pin mini USB connector. Secondly, I also wished they included an AC adaptor charger so I can easily charge my GPS at home or in a hotel room. There are other accessories you would have to purchase separately, but may want to consider: SD memory card, screen protector, carrying case, and a 2.5mm to 3.5mm adaptor for the headphones. So far, except for the AC adaptor charger, I purchased all of these extras, which ran me about an additional $35.

There are so many features with this GPS, it’s hard to know where to begin. First off, it picks up GPS signals very well. I am even able to receive signals indoors. With most other GPS units, you have to have an unobstructed view of the sky in order to pick up any signals. But the main selling point of the C320 over other GPS units is it’s 4.3” widescreen display. With it, you can view the map over the entire display, thus showing you a much wider area or you can enter into split screen mode where you can view the map in addition to other information such as current time, current speed, distance remaining until next turn, and estimated time of arrival to your destination. There is also a mode where you can display a list of the upcoming directions including which way to turn and the street name. You can also have it display a list of upcoming points of interest. The map itself can be viewed in a 2 dimensional flat overhead view or in a 3D view. Before you even begin your trip, you can set your route and have it do a simulated fly over of the route to give you a better idea of where you’re going. The C320 is also not limited to be used only in a car. There are other modes you can select such as if you’re using it as a pedestrian or riding a bicycle.

The C320 also gives turn-by-turn voice guidance so if you’d rather keep your eyes on the road, you can simply listen to the directions. Its just as if you had someone sitting in the passenger seat looking at a map and telling you, “OK, get off the next exit and then make a right turn.” As it is, the C320 does not have text to speech (TTS). That is, it will not tell you to turn left in 500 yards onto Main Street, it will only tell you to turn left in 500 yards. However, one of the pluses of the Mio is that it is hackable. That means you can access the underlying files to add features that the unit did not originally come with. Adding TTS is probably one of the most popular hacks. Instructions for doing this are posted on the web and anyone who is familiar with running installation programs and copying files should find it easy to do. I personally did this to my own unit and it really does work. You can also add additional voices. While the C320 comes with voices for 16 different languages, it only comes with one English voice and it is male. I personally prefer a female voice so I this was something else I added to my unit. Just keep in mind that if you do any hacks, you do so at your own risk, and its probably not recommended by Mio.

So how well does the Mio C320 perform? Well, for starters, I tried to input my home address and save it as a point of interest (POI). First it’ll ask you to select the state, then you select the city, then street name, then you input the house number. My house number is 3 so I entered 3 then saved it. But for some reason, it kept saving it as 7 instead of 3. I repeated the process several times to make sure I wasn’t doing anything wrong and each time, it would change the number from 3 to 7. I don’t understand why it was doing this. At first I thought maybe its because it didn’t have house #3 in it’s database so it was automatically defaulting to the nearest address. But then I kept tapping on the map in that general area until I hit on house #3. Then I saved that as a POI and this time it saved it correctly as 3. This apparently is not a defect in my unit because my brother has the Mio C310x and the same thing occurred when he tried to put my home address into his unit.

Next, I did a test run with it on a route that I was already familiar with. The suction cup mount was easy to install on my windshield. The only thing is that the power cord plugs into the bottom of the GPS so you can’t mount it with the bottom of the GPS resting flat on the dashboard. You have to elevate it a couple of inches to allow room for the plug. The mount does hold the GPS very securely though. The C320 picked up the GPS signals very quickly upon turning it on and it guided me onto the highway perfectly, But while it wanted me to stay on the highway, I got off and went a different route to see how well it would recalculate my route. At first, it will try to get you to go around the block to make a U-turn to go back to its original route. It tried to do this for maybe about a mile. Some of the streets were fairly close together and the C320 would tell me to turn onto a street that I already drove past. This is probably because it takes a moment for the GPS to recalculate a route and if the streets are spaced closely together, the time it takes to recalculate causes it to lag behind. After about a mile, it stopped trying to get me to turn around and it recalculated a completely new route. It guided me to my destination flawlessly after that. One thing I noticed while driving with it is that bright sunlight will wash out the screen. I don’t know if adjusting the screen brightness would have helped, but it’s difficult to adjust the settings while you’re driving. I also had set the volume too low at first and I had to wait until I stopped at a traffic light before I could adjust the volume. Everything is done thru the touch screen display but to adjust the volume, for example, you have to exit the map, then go into the settings menu, then select sound, and then you can adjust the volume. Of course, then you have to exit out of the settings and go back to the map. I found it difficult to do all that while driving.

Since the Mio C320 is not my first GPS, I also have a Garmin iQue 3200, I was able to make some comparisons. I think the most glaring difference between the two is the lack of POIs stored in the Mio. With my Garmin, there hasn’t been a POI that I searched for that I haven’t found. But with the Mio, for example, I was looking for the church near my sister’s house because we were going there for Christmas Mass but her car was full so I had to drive myself. I could not find any churches in the Mio POI database. I could have set my route if I knew the address of the church but I did not know the address. So basically, the GPS was useless. I had to wait until my sister’s car pulled out of her driveway then I followed behind. My Garmin does have the church as a POI so it would not have been a problem if I had my Garmin with me. I also noticed that while the Mio has listings of major stores like Wal-Mart, it will not have the smaller Mom and Pop shops or the corner store where you get your milk.

The Mio 320 also has a built-in MP3 player. It is compatible with WMA files as well. It has pretty much all the features you’d want in an MP3 player. You can set up different playlists. You can play songs in order or randomly. There are several preset equalizer settings to allow you to customize the sound. I was originally thinking I could use my C320 sort of like an iPod. But there are two problems. First, the C320 has a 2.5mm headphone jack, whereas most standard headphones have a 3.5mm plug. This means that you can’t use most headphones without an adapter. And secondly, the volume control only has 5 levels of adjustment (including mute). I find that even on the lowest volume setting it’s too loud for me when listening through headphones. It’s unfortunate that these shortcomings limit the usefulness of what would otherwise be a decent personal MP3 player.

One other thing I want to point out is that according to the documentation, the Lithium-Ion battery in the C320 is non-replaceable. I don’t know why this bothers me but it does. I guess because once the battery is shot, that means I have to throw the whole thing away? What a waste!

Overall, I think the Mio C320 is a good GPS for the price I paid for it. And I would say it’s probably the best GPS at that price point. While it is lacking in accessories and POIs, it is very capable, and good as an entry level GPS or for those who like to hack.

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