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Product Review: Page (1) of 1 - 10/02/07

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Mio DigiWalker C520

GPS with widescreen TFT display

By Joshua Virata

A couple of months ago I reviewed the Mio DigiWalker H610 personal GPS navigation unit and found it to be a great handheld GPS device that worked well for use while walking, running, biking, and other activities where a small footprint is best. Now I have the chance to review a GPS navigation unit that is more vehicle-friendly, the Mio DigiWalker C520. The C520 has a 4.3-inch TFT touch display in a landscape orientation that allows the GPS program on board to display a lot of information along with your route.

This GPS unit is very easy to use and has a well designed case that allows you to grip it in both hands and input information, whether it be the route information, address book information, calculator information or to dial a phone number.

On the back of the unit there is a center spine that encases an internal antenna, the external antenna connector and a speakerphone for the automated voice directions, for use with a cell phone, or playback of music or videos through the installed media player. The top of the unit is home to a single button that when pushed turns on the unit and if held can force the operating system to bring up a screen that lets you restart or fully shut down the device. The left side of the unit has the space for the headphone/mic jack and the SD or MMC card slot for memory expansion for videos, audio, or pictures. The right side of the unit is empty and the bottom of the unit has a mini USB port, and an 18 pin multi connector, for use with docks, in car connection kits, and other accessories.

All input to the device is done through the 4.3-inch touch screen that allows you to access all of the applications, while output is also done via the display through the on screen directions? status display. On the home screen you?ll find the MioMap, Videos and Audio players, and the Pictures viewer. There is also the Mobile Phone, Stereo, Tools, and Settings applications, all with their sub menus and operations. All of the applications open separately through the home screen, but most have to be closed and run individually.

Mio DigiWalker C520

The MioMap application on this unit has received a bit of an update plus an options change from the H610. The sub-menu screen is basically the same but instead of it being in a portrait display it's in a landscape display that allows it to use every bit of the unit's display real estate with large clear buttons. Inputting addresses, cities, and points-of-interest for your routes is basically the same as the H610, when you go to input an address you start out with the city, then the street name and house number; after all the information about your location is collected, the application proceeds to calculate your route from where you are and starts giving you directions. You can store your home and work address in the favorites menu but it doesn't have to be just your home and work it could be something else like a friend's house or place of education.

 In the application there is also the ability tune into a Traffic Message Channel (TMC) Control Center where the unit can download traffic information so that either you can manually adjust your route around traffic or have the GPS application automatically adjust your route for you for the fastest route. Use of this option is made possible with an optional cradle that allows the unit to tune into the FM-RDS channels for the traffic updates.

 If you're in an area that you're not familiar with and want to find a shopping center, recreation center, restaurant, or even a hotel, you can use the unit to look for those things with the Points-of-interest (POI) menu; not everything is in but there are many things that can be useful. With the POI's not only is the address stored but the phone number as well, which you can dial directly through the application and a Bluetooth paired cell phone. Using Bluetooth you can pair a lot of Bluetooth enabled cell phones through the unit, which enables yout to use the hands free capabilities of your cell phone to send and receive calls through the GPS application or through the Mobile Phone application. 

The call quality is excellent, as is the range of the Bluetooth connection. One time while testing the device I forgot my phone in the trunk of my car and had to make a phone call to a restaurant that I needed to make a reservation at, and I couldn't pull over because I was on the clock, so I used the Mio to connect to my phone via Bluetooth to make the phone call.

The Mobile Phone application can also accept a full phone book transfer and call history logs if your cell phone has those features enabled. The unit can also accept connections to stereo Bluetooth headsets for use with the video or the audio players.

In the Video player you can watch videos in both the 4:3 and widescreen format with pretty clean playback once the player has gotten into playing the video. At the beginning of a clip it does hiccup a bit. The video player can adjust the volume and brightness of the unit while playing a video. There are also controls to pause, stop, fast forward, and repeat the video as well as use the playback bar at the bottom as a jog bar within the video. In the audio player you can play audio files through the speaker in the back, use a stereo Bluetooth headset, or use the headphone jack to plug into a car's stereo. The audio player can create playlists of the songs that you have within the player itself and you can add or delete songs to separate playlists for playback. There is also a built in equalizer you can use to adjust the audio playback sound.

You can also choose to minimize the program so that it can run in the background. Although the buttons are separate from each other they are a bit hard to tell the difference between and should be repositioned to represent the Windows operating system buttons for the respective operations.

The picture viewer has a slideshow playback mode, simple viewer, and zoom capabilities but no image rotating capabilities to change the orientation of the images. You can change the backlighting for optimal image viewing as well as zoom into the images. There is an installed calculator and file manager in the Tools menu, as well as a Contacts manager.

With use you get used to the touch screen but you can also calibrate the display with your finger or stylus so that it's adjusted to your input. The display also adjusts automatically in the GPS application in accordance with the time so that it's easier to read in dark night situations and isn't blinding when you're glancing at the road and the screen. The Windows based operating system can crash with the use of some of the programs such as the Mobile Phone and Stereo Headset. I also found that some of the prompts that were written into the operating system aren't complete or clear sentences such as "An active connection is existed. Are you sure to disconnect the current connection..." and "Congratulations. The connection is successfully." Those two connections come up when pairing a Bluetooth cell phone to the unit and disconnecting the paired phones.

This GPS unit from Mio is a huge step up from the H610 I had previously reviewed from the small size, to the fairly large footprint of the C520. It's a really good handheld GPS for those people who don't want to pay around $2000 for a built-in system and for the MSRP of $399.95, I'd say that it's an excellent substitute. The built-in battery life is really good and can go without a charge all day with constant use and paired to a Bluetooth cell phone while in use, which is a good thing because who wants to have wires running down the side of the dashboard when you don't need them. For more information, visit www.miogps.com