The Mio DigiWalker Portable Navigation System (GPS)

Let me just start by saying that I am horrible with directions. I have driven just one city over (less than 10 minutes away) before, and it ended up taking me 2 hours to find my way back home. I have missed class field trips before because I never reached the destination (even though I gave myself an extra hour to account for getting lost). If anyone ever badly needed a GPS, it was me.

Last Christmas, I received this GPS as a gift. I had been looking into several GPS systems previously, but didn't see one that really stuck out. I had no need for restaurant menus really. I drive a VW Beetle, so there was really no where to install one of the fancy ones. In this area, we have some weird street names. I knew that no GPS would be able to pronounce these names, and of course, that would get annoying. I kept trying to decide on one, but couldn't. Finally, I was given this one. It ended up being exactly what I would have picked, if I had even heard of it.

Mio might be a less common brand, but it's certainly worth looking into. Since Mio isn't well known, it's more affordable than comparable units. Mio carries a couple different models of portable navigation systems. I have one of their less expensive models, the C310x. I find this model to be more than what I need, but I must admit I enjoy all the extra features.

My Favorite Features

I love that this GPS is operated by a good sized touch screen. While I realize that most portable navigation systems are now operated by touch screen, I still think it's a nice feature. The maps have proved to be very up to date so far. There has only been one time that I've run into a street that didn't show up, but that was a very new street. At first, I didn't think I would care for the POI (point of interest) feature, but now I think this has become my absolute favorite, and deserves its own section in the review.

The Point of Interest Feature

This is by far my favorite feature on the GPS. How many times have you been driving along and suddenly your car makes that dinging sound that tells you that you will run out of gas shortly? I bet you wish you could just easily find a gas station from that spot. Well, with this GPS, you can. You don't have to worry even if you only have a gas card on you, as the GPS will locate that particular gas station for you. Even if you never forget to watch your gas tank, everyone ends up being hungry in an unfamiliar area every so often. With the point of interest feature, you can not only find your favorite chain restaurant, but you can also search for other nearby restaurants and see what smaller places are around. You may find a new favorite place to eat that you would have never found otherwise. Maybe you just missed the last showing for a certain movie you wanted to see. No problem! You can use your GPS to find the next closest theater. However, you still aren't sure that that theater will have another showing of the movie you want. Again, not a problem. The Mio provides the theater's phone number so that you can call and check movie listings. Now let's say you're on vacation and have a few hours to kill in a strange city. You can look for things to do under "entertainment" and "culture." After spending a few hours at the museum, you go to your hotel only to find out it is a sleazy roach infested dump. Look up a new lodging on your GPS. One of the kids got sick and you need to go to the hospital, but you're not sure where it is? No problem, this GPS lists hospitals. Not only does this GPS list hospitals, it even lists dentists. You will find out about all kinds of new points of interest even in your own town.

Other Things That I Like About This GPS

As I mentioned earlier, I'm very bad at directions. I don't even know right and left without really thinking about it. Reading isn't my strong point either. Luckily, this GPS seems to have been made for people like me. While it does display street names on the screen, you don't really need to look at the screen at all to know where to go. This GPS doesn't even bother trying to pronounce difficult street names. Apparently, Mio understands the limitations of today's technology, and realizes that not all street names would be read correctly if they tried to make their portable navigation system read them to the driver. Instead, Mio did something much better. Their GPS doesn't make you look for a specific street name, but instead just has you look for the 2nd right, 3rd left, or whatever. This is far easier to do than trying to read a street sign (especially in the dark at night). Of course, this doesn't solve my problem of not knowing right and left, but that's okay. If I turn left instead of right, the GPS just says, "route recalculation." Then the route is recalcutated and I am either given a completely new route, or I'm told to "please turn back." This works for me as I now get to places a whole lot faster.

A Nice Feature That I Don't Use

Aside from giving great directions, this GPS also works as an mp3 player (off a Secure Digital memory card). You can't use the maps and the mp3 player at the same time, but this is a nice feature for someone who is driving to places they already know how to get to. My car already has an mp3 player, so I just use the GPS for its navigation purposes instead. This definitely could be a nice bonus for some people though.

What I Don't Like

Well, you can't like everything. While I would still say this is my favorite GPS out of every GPS that I have ever seen, there are still a few things that I don't like. I don't like the mounting system on this GPS, at least, not for my car. The front window is out too far in front of me so I couldn't easily reach this GPS there. Instead, I leave it on the passenger seat and just listen to the directions. The screen isn't essential while driving, which is definitely a good thing because you don't want a bunch of people out there driving while looking at their GPS and talking on their cell phones. It would still be nice to mount the thing however, so I'm still working on an alternate method. The other thing that I don't like, is that this GPS must be charged in your car. Of course, I can see the logic in including a car charger. While you're driving it's nice to be able to just plug it in if you suddenly find that it's running out of battery life. However, the thing with touch screens is that they are sensitive to temperature. It's 85 degrees outside today (yes, in February!). It's about 95 degrees inside my car. When it gets over 100 in the summer, it will be even worse. I don't want to ruin the screen just because I'm charging the GPS out in a hot car. Especially not when I could charge it inside if I had that option. Other than those two problems though, I've really liked everything about this GPS so far.

If you just need a basic GPS to give you directions, this is a great GPS. You'll get more than just the basics, for the price of a very basic model of a well known brand. The Mio DigiWalker C310x is an excellent model for easy use. I never read the book on how to use this thing, I just took it out of the box and started using it. This model has more than enough features for me. Overall, I'd recommend it to anyone who gets lost easily (or just wants to forget about the hassle of always printing out maps).