Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great GPS for a great price, November 8, 2007
I have the Mio C230 for about a month now. I have to say it was not very easy to use at first, but after a couple of hours, I was able to find my way around it. This is my third GPS, I have a Garmin C340 for almost two years, and a Nuvi 370 for about eight months; so I can say that I have a bit of experience with the Garmin products which considered to be one of the best GPS in the market. The only reason I got the Mio is its ability to add multiple stops to your final destination (Via Points), and the ability to optimize the route for you, a feature is not available in the Garmin products. My fiancé is a realtor, and she makes numerous stops to show houses to her clients; with the Garmin, she had to enter one stop at the time, which means that she might be going back and forth or zig zaging around; with the Mio, all she has to do is to input as many addresses as she needs to, and then the Mio will optimize the route and guide her around, cool.
You can enter address either by state / city / street; or you can use zip code / street; very nice feature. Any address you input will be automatically stored in the history and you can retrieve it at any time; you can also copy everything to the SD card and store it in your computer or use the data in another Mio, cool. If you don't have the address but know where your destination is on the map, you can touch that point on the map, and the Mio will take you there.
There is also an icon for "Home" where you can store your home address, by clicking it, the Mio will take you home, a similar one is for "work". You can rename both if needed.
The detailed information available on the screen in "cockpit mode" is impressive, on the upper left corner it shows the next maneuver (an arrow going right or left), below that it shows the distance to that maneuver and the estimated time of arrival to your final destination. Next to that you have four icons to zoom in and out on the map, and to change the view from 2 to 3 dimensions and vise versa. Another nice feature is the pedestrian mode, in that mode; the Mio will take you thru the shortest route ignoring the traffic direction of one way streets. You can customize the Mio for brighter screen or to get louder if you reach a specific speed; routing can be customized to shortest, fastest or economical. You can avoid Toll roads, U turns, unpaved roads, Highways, etc.
The Text to Speech feature is also a definite plus. The only thing that I really don't like in the Mio C230 is the very limited number of POI's (about 900K), you will hardly be able to find anything in there, Mio needs to do smoothing about that limitation. However, you can add you own POI's to the data base if you know the address.
In short, if you don't need the MP3/Photo player, or the blue tooth, the Mio C230 is a great basic GPS, loaded with features that are not available on other big name brands, great signal reception, bright screen, clear TTS voice, nice design, pocket size, at an unbeatable price. Impressive
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
MIO DIGIWALKER C230 BEST TEXT TO SPEECH GPS UNDER $200, January 5, 2008
Features I was looking for in a GPS unit that the MIO C230 has.
1. Text to speech.
2. Under $200.
3. Touch screen.
4. Updates and firmware availability (video, mp3 media player, calculator features)
5. Pre-installed maps on the unit NOT on SD card.
6. Maps and POIs for Hawaii, Alaska,Puerto Rico and Canada. (Try finding this on ANY of the other competitors GPS units for under $200)
7. Flexibility to be used on foot, driving and bike.(Again try finding this on the other competitors GPS units).
8. Traffic video camera alerts (traffic lights with video cameras)
This unit may not be as easy as the Garmins and I have owned the pilot i5 and Nuvi 600 series model, but they were not as easy to update or have the flexibility as this model. The Garmin Pilot i5 was my favourite. It worked with 2 rechargeable AA batteries, but it lacked text to speech and worked with the micro SD card that brought me to getting a replacement... the MIO C230. After reviewing and trying the Tomtom One, Navigon 2100 I decided to go with the MIO, it required sitting down and spending 30mins but it was worth having these 8 features.
I just hope MIO comes out with a model that works with batteries the consumer can replace. All GPS units seem to have the same problem and that is you end up replacing them just like blue tooth headsets, every 3-5yrs depending on how much you use it... when the battery dies you are better of buying a brand new GPS unit, map updates can run you between $65-100.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely fantastic!!, December 27, 2007
This is my first GPS system so I cannot compare this Mio230 model with any others.
I had read reviews of several different systems and just when I thought I had found the correct model for me, a negative review would pop up!
This mostly happened with reviews of ALL devices so I decided to go with my gut feeling.
I then read that Mio had text to speech - which I didn't think was important.
I've only had the Mio for 2 days so I'm hardly an expert.
All I can say is that for $149 it is amazing!
I would advise anyone getting a GPS system without speech to forget about it and go with speech.
It is virtually impossible to drive and consult a screen at the same time, particularly if you're driving in a city like Boston.
So, whether or not you purchase a Mio, just make sure it has TTS.
Otherwise you're just wasting your money!!!
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