Mitac Mio 169
Nick Ross, Clive Webster
|
Dec 14, 2005 11:10 AM
|
Minidigital | http://www.minidigtal.com.au
RRP: $859 (time of review)
It’s not perfect but the combination of price, features and software just edged it ahead this month.
Overall Rating: 
User Rating: No user ratings.
|
The thing that instantly hits you with the Mio 169 is that it’s designed to be
used primarily in landscape mode.
The thing that instantly hits you with the Mio 169 is that it’s designed to be used primarily in landscape mode. A quick press on a front button quickly switches between this and the portrait display which is more useful for regular PDA work. It certainly enhances the onscreen map. This becomes evident at junctions when, depending on the setting you’ve chosen, half the screen shows a clear block diagram of the route to take while the other displays a readable map.
The layout is highly conducive to driving it’s simple to quickly prod an onscreen button to switch between overhead and 3D mode or split screen (showing text or diagrams) or full screen. All the while speed, time and distance to destination and location are easily visible. It’s even easy to change the scale.
However, there is a slight element of clunkiness both with the software and hardware. While it’s simple to see which road to take, it’s not so easy to make out the surrounding roads and POIs do little but add clutter to the display. Neither is it the smoothest scroller despite the powerful 400MHz Intel PXA-255 processor. Scrolling around a map with the mini joystick is pretty tortuous with a delay between pressing it and anything happening.
Our hardware gripe is the antennae which has been slapped on the back making it less pocket friendly than the Acer or Garmin models. Still, the large speaker is impressively loud and clear.
The screen is bright and offers relatively good viewing angles. You also get an incredibly generous 512MB SD card which is enough for not only a full complement of maps but serious storage too. Maps of Europe and the USA are a very reasonable $299.
There was a great deal of competition this month but the Mio came through as the winner. At $859 it’s well priced for what you get with the landscape mode proving to be a killer feature. But it’s still noticeably more expensive than the Acer whose only fault is a weak speaker the CoPilot mapping view is noticeably crisper if slightly more awkward main contender was the Navman. Currently, it’s $80 more which is enough to tip the balance Mio’s way, but a planned price drop to $899 (RRP) may change things. Navman’s maps offer much better detail but the route becomes harder to see and it’s less intuitive to set up. It’s a completely personal preference that’s settled by the price this month.
This article appeared in the
January, 2006 issue of PC Authority.