GPS Devices Life

OK, but … - Mitac Mio¿ DigiWalker¿ C310x Car GPS Receiver I'm on my THIRD C310x! I am SO happy that I didn't buy mailorder because of - like most have said - Mio's customer...

Mitac Mio™ DigiWalker™ C310x Car GPS Receiver Product C310X Key FeaturesDesignationAutomobileForm FactorFixedMap capabilitiesIn...

The Mio C310 is a compact portable GPS car navigation system. Mio is the brand name of Taiwanese company Mitac, which has become quite well known as a supplier of GPS nav systems worldwide in the last few years. There are several different versions of the C310, depending on the software generation and the amount of memory installed. My version is a Mio C310SX, which comes with MioMap 3.2 software and 512 Mbytes of flash memory for maps. A 1 Gbyte C310X version with enough space to hold all the U.S. maps at once is also widely available. Memory capacity can be extended by adding an SD card.

Like many other such units that are beginning to flood the market, the Mio C310 is designed around a fairly standard Windows CE PDA chassis, with the addition of a built-in GPS chipset and a navigation program. In the case of the Mio C310, the GPS chipset is the well-known SiRFstar III (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SiRFstar_III), and the MioMap 3.2 navigation program is an OEM version of iGO (http://www.i-go.com/en/). Earlier versions of the C310 used Destinator nav software, so you may encounter some differences in the review comments based on which version people reviewed.

Given the mix-and-match nature of this type of product, I’ll split my review into 5 parts: the Mio C310 hardware, the GPS performance, the MioMap 3.2 nav software, the map database and navigation performance, and how this unit can be enhanced by hacking. August 2007: I’ve also added an update at the end about updating the maps.

C310 Hardware:

The C310 is proportioned like a pocket-sized PDA that’s a little thicker than usual, with a big 3.5 inch color touch screen on the front, a small speaker on the back, and a few control buttons on the side. The GPS antenna is well integrated, making only a very slight bulge on the top edge. The smoothly-rounded edges let it fit comfortably in the hand. It seems solidly built and nicely finished. It’s easily portable in a pocket, unlike the clunky triangular car GPS units from other companies. However no carrying case is provided, and the unit is not intended to be waterproof or particularly rugged. Mind you, I have dropped it accidentally onto a concrete floor without damage, so it’s not that fragile. If you intend to carry it around a lot, you can buy a rugged aluminum fitted case for it from Boxwave (but not waterproof).

The 320 x 240 x 65K color screen has good resolution and brightness. It’s easily visible in daylight, although it does wash out in direct bright sunlight. The touch screen operates quite well in normal use for tapping buttons and icons, but it can be a bit erratic for tasks such as dragging to scroll.

The small speaker on the back has good volume and reasonably low distortion. It’s normally used for voice navigation in the car, but I can even listen to music on it without cringing, though it’s a bit tinny for that. There’s a stereo headphone jack on the lower side that supplies adequate volume with reasonably efficient headphones.

The Mio has a 400 MHz Arm processor, which provides good current-generation performance with the WinCE 4.2 operating system that it runs under the hood. While I was comparing to the Garmin C60 handheld GPS, it was obvious that the processor in the Mio is much faster at tasks like panning and zooming the map. It is also able to keep up with more difficult tasks like playing 320 x 240 MPEG-4 video on the screen (not a standard function - see hacking below).

There’s a built-in lithium ion rechargeable battery that’s supposed to be good for up to 5 hours use when fully charged, and I’ve certainly used it for that much time between charges. A car charger is supplied, which you would normally use for continuous power in the car. Earlier units came with an AC charger as well, but Mio has dropped that from more recent packages, probably as a cost-saving measure, leaving only the supplied USB cable for charging. There’s no provision for changing the battery when it eventually dies, so users are in for an iPod-like adventure in opening up the Mio to see what it uses.

On the left front edge is an LED that shows amber for “charging” and green for “full charge” when the unit is plugged into a power supply. There’s a second LED below it, but it’s not mentioned in the manual and has no apparent purpose.

On the top side of the unit are a slight bulge for the internal GPS antenna, and the SD card slot. Behind the antenna bulge is a jack for an external GPS antenna, covered by a plastic plug. On the right side are four buttons: On/off (actually Suspend/Resume), Menu (displays the program menu), and Volume + and – buttons to control the speaker volume. On the bottom side are the stereo headphone jack, the USB jack (also used for charging), a recessed soft-reset button, and a small recessed on/off switch. This on/off switch is normally left on permanently unless the unit is not being used regularly. Normally the Mio goes into suspend mode when you do a soft shutdown with the On/Off button, and resumes instantly where it left off when you turn it on again.

The SD card slot supports SD and MMC cards up to 2 Gbytes capacity, and also 4 Gbyte cards that use the same interface as the older 2 Gbyte cards (careful which type of 4 Gbyte card you buy!). There’s no particular need for a high-speed SD card unless you want to speed up some optional application programs installed on the SD card.

Mio supplies a car mount that has a 2-way swivel head and a suction cup base for sticking onto the windshield of the car. It works well for me, positioning the display correctly and holding on tight without vibration. Mio also supplies a sticky pad to use if you want to mount the base on the dash instead, but only one sticky pad is supplied, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to mark up the dash in my car with sticky gunk.

GPS Performance

GPS reception performance is particularly important for a car nav system, which has to deal with a fast-moving platform and signal blockage from the surrounding car body and tall buildings in the city.

The SiRFstar III GPS chipset found in the Mio C310 (and many other recent GPS units) promises both improved GPS reception sensitivity and lower power consumption compared to earlier GPS chipsets. For my own test I compared the Mio C310 to a couple of handheld GPS units, a Garmin C60 and a Magellan eXplorist 100. In an indoor location with marginal reception, the Mio 310 acquired 10 satellites within a minute, while the Garmin and Magellan units struggled for a couple of minutes to acquire the minimum 4 to get a position fix. It took the Garmin and Magellan units over 3 minutes to converge to the same position value as the Mio had initially, which they achieved only after they picked up the WAAS signal. The Mio was able to get a fix even in worse reception conditions where the Garmin and Magellan units couldn’t find any satellites at all.

As with other GPS units, real accuracy depends on how many satellites are being received. They all tend to converge on the same position with the same accuracy given enough time and enough satellites, so it’s really a matter of how fast they get there, and how well they hold onto the signal in difficult conditions. The Mio can take anything from 10 to 90 seconds to get a position fix from the time you turn it on, depending on whether it’s a warm start (close to last known position and time). Like other GPS units, it usually takes at least a minute, in spite of the promises that a warm start should take less than 30 seconds. It tends to be faster to get an initial fix than the Garmin and Magellan units where reception conditions are poor, but otherwise they’re similar. The Mio seems to hang on to the GPS signal well while driving, although I have seen occasional momentary dropouts under difficult conditions such as driving down a road covered by tall trees with a mountain on one side.

The MioMap nav software:

My version of the C310 came with MioMap 3.2 software. The initial screen offers 3 choices: MioMap, Settings, or MP3 (previous software generations also offered some extra choices like Contacts). Tapping MioMap brings up the MioMap 3.2 nav software. Normally you can leave it running and use the On/Off button on the side of the Mio to suspend/resume. Only occasionally do you need to exit MioMap to check or change something on the main Settings menu. The MP3 button starts a custom music player program, which can be used to play MP3 song files from an SD card. If you want you can leave music running while you go back to the MioMap software, and voice directions will interrupt the music.

The MioMap 3.2 software is very configurable and has a wealth of functions. I eventually found almost everything I looked for. Unfortunately settings are scattered all over the interface, and the sketchy manual provided on CD by Mio doesn’t begin to cover them all. In addition to the C310 Settings page accessed from the Mio desktop, there’s a separate MioMap Settings page accessed from the MioMap home page. Other settings are accessed from the map menu and the routing menu, while still others are found by clicking various icons and display buttons. Users would be well advised to download iGO’s complete manual from here: http://www.i-go.com/download/iGO_2006_SD_User_Manual_UK_v1_09.pdf. But keep in mind that Mio’s OEM version of iGO’s software does not implement all of the functions (see hacking below).

You can use the unit in either the Map view or the Cockpit view. In the Map view, the map fills the entire screen. In the Cockpit view there is an information panel on the left side of the map showing information about the current route, such as time and distance to next turn, current speed etc. You can customize the fields that appear there from a small selection of available information. You can change date/time formats and coordinate systems (ft/mi or m/km). Normally the Map view is 2d, while the Cockpit view is 3d (map rotated to show some perspective), but either view can be switched to 2d or 3d. Your current position and orientation is shown by a green arrow at the center of the map. Using optional icons on the map window, you can zoom in and out on the map, and control the tilt of the 3d perspective view over a limited range. The Cockpit view defaults to an Auto mode where the program tilts and zooms automatically to show more detail as you approach an intersection where you need to turn on your route. You can scroll the map to a different location by dragging your finger across the screen. If you change the zoom or scroll the the map to a different location, a Lock icon appears which you can tap to return immediately to the default view centered on your current location. There are two alternate color schemes, one for day and one for night. You can set the Mio to automatically switch color schemes and display brightness according to the time of day.

In either view, there are information icons on the right side of the map which you can tap to control functions such as display orientation (track up, north up, or high-level map overview), see satellite details, check battery/program settings, and quickly turn the speaker on and off. At the bottom corners are tabs you can tap to call up the program menu or the routing functions. The route construction and editing procedure is a bit complex compared to some other nav software, but all the expected options are there, and it’s very flexible. You can find street address, place names, points of interest (like restaurants, gas stations etc), or straight lat/long coordinates (decimal degrees only, no provision for deg/min/sec). There’s a simple option to specify your two most-commonly-used Favorite locations (nominally called Home and Work), and you can create, name and save your own POIs. You can specify a route with multiple waypoints. There are options to specify Fastest or Shortest route, type of vehicle (e.g. bicycle, car, bus), type of roads allowed (e.g., unpaved, toll roads) and several other parameters. Route calculation is very quick, normally only a few seconds.

The directions issued while driving are reasonably good. The name of the street you are on is always shown at the bottom center of the map, while the name of the street you are heading to is always shown at the top center. The Cockpit information panel on the left shows an icon for the type of turn you need to make at the next routing point, with the time and distance to the next routing point below it. The voice directions give you plenty of warning of upcoming turns, telling you at least twice in advance, with distances depending on your speed. If you miss a turn, the software realizes right away that you are off route and recalculates within seconds. This arrangement is very similar to other nav software – the various suppliers seem to be converging on a common design. The default English male speaker voice used by Mio is clear and easy to understand. I haven’t tried other languages or voices. One feature the Miomap software doesn’t have is text-to-speech capability to speak the name of the street you are supposed to turn on, but that’s ok as long as it’s shown clearly at the top of the display.

You can optionally record a track log to show the exact path you followed. You can save multiple track logs, assigning your own names and showing each on the map in a different color. The start/end times and total track length can be displayed for each track from the track log management page.

Map database and navigation performance:

The Mio uses TeleAtlas maps (http://www.teleatlas.com/Pub/Home). North American units come with all the maps for the USA and Canada (you can request the Canada.fbl map from Mio or just download it from the web if you didn’t get it). Depending on the amount of memory supplied in the unit, they may all be pre-installed, or you may have to shuffle some on and off the unit from the supplied map DVD using the map transfer program. You can also store maps on an SD card if you want to expand the capacity.

Opinions on the maps vary greatly depending on where you live and where you travel. The online consensus of GPS nav system users seems to be that the Navteq maps used by some of the other GPS units are better than the TeleAtlas maps used by Mio, but it depends partly on which generation of maps you have, as all the map suppliers release yearly updates. Mio’s TeleAtlas map database is from Feb 2005. They promise that an update will be available in early 2007, but it won’t necessarily be free to current owners.

For my own part, using the Mio to navigate around my own city and few other nearby locations that I’ve visited, I would describe the results as hit-and-miss. Given the complexity of the job and the limitations of the map data available, I feel kind of like I’m criticizing a dancing elephant because it doesn’t dance very well, when the miracle is that it dances at all. But the fact is that in the city where I live, the Mio fails to navigate correctly on about 75% of the trips I’ve tried it on – by which I mean that I don’t think it would have gotten me to the destination very easily if I were relying on it blindly. That doesn’t inspire great confidence as to how it may perform in other locations that I don’t know as well. The problems range from not being able to find addresses or Points of Interest (POIs), to advising routes that don’t make sense or are impossible due to traffic restrictions or streets that don’t actually connect, to getting lost at complicated interchanges.

The basic street data is not bad – it can find most streets and most addresses on those streets, and the overall street layout is basically correct. Where it really falls down is on ancillary information, like:

- It apparently knows nothing about traffic flow on the streets. A major street where traffic crawls slowly due to heavy volume and stop lights every block is more likely to be selected for routing than a lightly-traveled street where traffic flows quickly and smoothly.

- Information on traffic restrictions (like No Left Turn) is very limited, and often out of date. This is not surprising when cities can change it frequently on a whim, but obviously it’s a critical routing shortcoming, particularly in areas where it’s not a simple grid street layout with obvious alternatives.

- Occasional critical map blunders occur, like not knowing that vertically-separated streets don’t connect.

The nav software has some problems too:

- Sometimes the route it selects just doesn’t make sense to me, for example driving in the wrong direction and then doubling back, or taking more complicated side streets that are further out of the way. You can choose between Fastest and Shortest, but sometimes it’s neither.

- It insists on trying to put you back on the erroneous pre-calculated route when you have clearly deviated from it for a reason, instead of calculating a new more sensible route from where you are.

- It likes to select a different route back than you took on the way there. That doesn’t make sense, since it means you are directed into unfamiliar territory instead of taking the route you already know.

- It sometimes advises U-turns to put you back on track, even in cities where U-turns are illegal at most intersections, and you have selected “no U-turns” in the settings.

I’ve seen similar problems with other nav systems that I’ve used occasionally, but I haven’t done enough comparison to say whether one is significantly better than another. The lesson I take from it is that it’s never a good idea to rely blindly on the nav system without taking a close look at the planned route in advance, and then following along to know where you are at all times. If necessary you can modify the Mio’s planned route by just tapping points on the map and selecting “Route via”.

I hope to see improvements over time with future software/database updates.

Hacking the Mio C310:

As mentioned above, the Mio C310 runs WinCE 4.2 under the hood – it just isn’t accessible with the standard software package. There’s a USB PC interface which you can use with the Mio Transfer program, but it can be used only for uploading maps or MP3 tunes to specific locations on the unit.

I won’t bother giving the detailed hacking directions, as you can get them from many web sites. You’ll find a good index here: http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/forum.asp?FORUM_ID=37

After unlocking the user interface, the unit will start up on a standard WinCE desktop with icons for MioMap, Settings, and MP3, and you can install and run any other WinCE programs you want. Most people start by installing a media player like TCPMP, which allows you to play MPEG-4 videos, as well as music and photos. The Mio makes a fine video player with its big 3.5 inch screen.

The Mio user interface is highly configurable, as it follows the WinCE standard of having the entire user interface coded in editable XML files. There are dozens of custom skins available, which you can find by following the above link. If you don’t like the default user interface layout, there’s plenty of options. In addition it turns out that most of the iGO functions missing in MioMap’s OEM version of the software can be re-enabled by editing the XML files. You might want to enable the track log export function that lets you export your track logs to an SD card in gpx format for easy transfer to PC mapping software, or the Fast Fly Over function that lets you preview a route at high speed.

You can download the MioContacts program to import your contacts from Outlook, Outlook Express, or a csv file and export them to the Mio, where they are added automatically to the POI database so that you can search for them by name and route to the associated address. There’s also a convenient iGOPOIExplorer program to edit, import, and export your own Points of Interest in the Mio database.

Many people also experiment with running other nav software as an alternative to MioMap. For example you can install and run iGuidance with Navteq maps, or the popular TomTom.software for WinCE PDAs. The MioMap software is a bit lacking in the area of offroad navigation, but there are better alternatives like OziExplorer.

Naturally Mio doesn’t support any of these non-standard uses, but you can ask questions and get answers from other users in the Mio forum mentioned above.

August 2007: Map Updates

Mio finally got around to releasing their C310 map update for U.S. customers in the form of an update DVD about 6 months after they initially promised, and in fact after they had already stopped selling the Mio C310. It’s available by mail from Mio, or from some retail stores.

The good news is that the maps are significantly improved, but unfortunately it’s not all good news.

Mio decided to charge their customers a fee for the upgrade DVD, and they came up with a complicated activation code scheme to make sure that each upgrade sold can be used only once. The maps are a little bigger than before, and Mio decided to reduce the number of POIs to make it fit in the on-board memory of the existing C310X units. The newer models replacing the C310 got the full version with more POIs, but there’s no legal option to get that full version on the C310. The installer also permanently alters the unit firmware ID so that it is no longer allowed to open the Canadian map, since Mio finally decided that map shouldn’t have been licensed to U.S. customers. Meanwhile Canadian customers have not been offered any map upgrade option.

Since hacked versions of the updated maps from the more recent units replacing the C310 were widely distributed on the internet while users became impatient waiting for Mio’s much-delayed official update, this smacks a little of locking the barn door after the horse has bolted. On the one hand Mio should be praised for coming through with an update for a unit which has already been superseded. On the other hand, for the reasons noted above, it’s too little, too late. On balance, I’m disappointed in Mio.

Conclusion:

I love the Mio C310 hardware. It looks and feels like a quality product, and the GPS performance is excellent. The MioMap nav software provided is functional and highly configurable, and once you hack the interface to open up the WinCE desktop, it becomes a very flexible PDA and media player. It’s a great value for money. I just wish that the original maps were better, and that Mio had donw a better job with the update, as it remains a bit weak in the core area of accurate street navigation in unknown locations.

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