Picked up the Mio DigiWalker C220 GPS yesterday.  Not a bad little unit, but it isn’t necessarily the Holy Grail of GPS units.

One of my favorite video podcasts is InDigital with Hahn Choi, Wil Wheaton, and Jessica Corbin (mmmmm, Jessica Corbin).  A few episodes back, Wil Wheaton (yes, THAT Wil Wheaton) reviewed the Mio DigiWalker GPS system and gave it a great review.  My TomTom 700 is getting a little long in the tooth, so I figured I could use a new GPS.  And at less than $200 (Amazon price $180), how could I go wrong?

But let’s back up.  Wil said it was less than $200, but the C220 isn’t really the DigiWalker.  It’s called the Mio C220 Portable Car Navigation System.  I think Wil was reviewing the DigiWalker, or the H610, which is currently $325 at Amazon.  Did I get duped?

In any case, I grabbed the C220 and it’s a nice little unit.  It’s compact, a little larger than a deck of cards, and full of useful features.  There’s nothing super fancy about it, but for less than $200, that’s perfect.

For instance, there’s no Bluetooth connectivity.  But who cares?  I get annoyed when my TomTom hijacks my phone calls.  I can’t hear the person talking to me and they can’t hear me, so what’s the use?  I mean, it is nice that the TomTom can dial in and get weather and traffic updates, but that service isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and setting it up reliably was a nightmare.  So I don’t miss the Bluetooth on the C220.

So, here are my gripes about the C220 so far.  First, it’s not very loud.  In fact, I couldn’t hear what the directions were, and that’s in a reasonably quiet rental car (Subaru Outback).  But I could hear the “dings” that signified that the C220 was giving me instructions, and I could just read the display to see what was up.  So that’s not a huge issue.

Second, there is very little internal memory, so the maps must reside on an SD card.  I guess that’s not such a big deal either.  After all, not so long ago, I had a portable GPS system where the memory cards were proprietary and very expensive (I’m shouting at you, Garmin!).  Even so the 1GB SD card that comes with the C220 has the entire US on it, so it’s no biggie.

Furthermore, the unit does not come with a carrying case.  Not that I need a belt hook or a wrist strap, but just something to keep the unit relatively safe from harm in my backpack.

The menu navigation is a little clunky and non-intuitive.  When you press the screen to identify a spot, a menu pops up offering four options, Route To, Add Via, Continue, and Add Cam.  One would think that “Route To” would open up a new menu to find an address or POI to route to.  Nope, it sets the spot you pressed as the new destination.  If there’s a route already in progress, say adios to it.  No confirmation question or anything.  “Continue” is also an odd option.  It doesn’t mean “continue on with the current route” but rather “add the selected point as the new destination after the current destination.”  “Add via” makes sense and “Add Cam” just seems silly (more on that later).

Then there is the actual “menu” which has many options and suboptions under it.  There is a third menu, which is really a shortcut to one of the options under the main menu.  Buried in the suboptions somewhere is a “leave” option that then takes you to a main screen with two choices: “MioMap” and “Settings”.  Some of the settings are here and other settings are under the map’s menu.  I know, it’s tough to follow.

But in the end, the unit has a lot of useful features.  You can get an overview of your route, which alerts you, visually, to any possible issues in your route, such as toll roads, unpaved roads, ferries, etc.

The smart zoom feature is also pretty good.  When you’re close to a maneuver (a turn, for instance), it switches to a 3D view from behind your vehicle and zooms in as the turn or whatever approaches.  But when you’re on the highway, it switches to a top-down zoomed-out view because that’s more informative while in that mode.  It also does some other nifty things like if you are traveling between cities, the “next maneuver” that it has on-screen isn’t the next turn, but rather the town or city in which it is.  So, for instance, say I am driving from Pittsburgh to Akron.  Once I am out on the road, instead of saying “Exit 9″ or whatever, it says “Akron” until I get into Akron, and then it will say “Exit 9.”

There are 2 main map views, “Map” and “Cockpit.”  The documentation says that the map view is mainly for when you’re planning your trip, and then the cockpit view is for actually navigating.  The information displayed on the cockpit view is customizable to a degree, which is nice.

You can also “record” your track to play back later.  My TomTom doesn’t do that.  And it sure is nice to have a GPS track to look at.  I recall getting a ticket in Georgia and telling the tale that I was behaving myself except for the unfortunate 300 yards where the speed trap happened to be.  My friends didn’t believe me, as friends are wont to do.  So, I downloaded my GPS track (back when I had the Garmin) to my PC and brought it into Excel and created a graph.  Sure enough, my speedometer went over 80 only during the 10 seconds or so before it dropped to zero for the 15 minutes it took the patrolman to write the ticket.

Finally, the best part is that the charger is a standard USB plug (the small one like Blackberries use).  This is perfect, since my phone uses the same interface.  That greatly reduces the cords I have to carry around.  Although, the C220 only comes with a cigarette lighter charger, and it’s one piece.  So, that charger isn’t useful for anything other than charging either my C220 or my phone, but only in the car.  It would be nice if it came with a standard USB cable and two plugs, one for the wall and one for the car.  That way, you can charge from the outlet, from the car, or from a PC’s USB port.

A few other goods and bads.  The C220 will alert you to lane changes, which I have not seen other GPS units do.  It also will alert you when you’re speeding, although I don’t think the unit has the speed limits stored for the US.  I am assuming Mio is European, since the documentation, even the US documentation, uses words like “maneouvre”.

Finally, the C220 tracks traffic cameras.  WTF?  Apparently, it has a database (I’m assuming this is a European thing) of traffic cameras and it will warn you as to their presence.  That’s what the “Add Cam” is.  It allows you to add a traffic camera to the C220’s database.  Who is doing this?  Who is running through intersections and spotting traffic cameras?  Again, it must be a European thing.

All in all, I do recommend the Mio C220.  It’s an excellent starter GPS unit for people who don’t want a lot of glitz and glimmer (or cost).  And it’s also very portable to be thrown in a backpack for use whenever it’s needed.

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This entry was posted on Friday, May 11th, 2007 at 9:10 am and is filed under GPS, Gadget. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.