Product Review – Mio DigiWalker C220

June 17, 2007

Mio DigiWalker C220

GPS Review

Accurate navigation. Sub-$200 price tag. The Mio DigiWalker C220 is every customer’s dream. It may lack the bells and whistles of the Nuvi’s, or the glitz and glamor of its big brother (the Mio DigiWalker C520), but what it does, it does well – it has rock solid navigation at a price that almost anyone can afford. The unit has a fairly bright screen – not the brightest but I’ve seen worse, although it is hard to read in strong sunlight – and has a built in Lithium Ion battery, good for roughly two hours.

Navigation in the C220 is based on the Mio Map 3.2 system, which is based on a TeleAtlas mapset. As anyone who is a regular reader of this blog knows, I’m not a big fan of the TeleAtlas maps. While they may be great in Europe, their North American maps are lacking. I wish this unit had NavTeq maps, but at this price beggars can’t be choosers. It still does a fairly decent job, and – to be honest – the newer TeleAtlas maps aren’t that bad. They could be better, and they’ve definitely been worse in the past. One shortcoming, in my opinion – the maps are on a preloaded SD card, similar to the original TomTom One. I do not like this setup, because if you lose that card, you’re SOL until you pony up for another one (and that isn’t always cheap.)

One cool feature of this unit is something called “Start Somewhere Else” which does exactly what you think it would. It lets you plot out a route starting from somewhere besides where you are currently. It may have no use for actual in car navigation, but it is amazingly useful for plotting out vacations or roadtrips.

The C220, like most other GPS navigation units on the market these days, has a Points of Interest system built into it. Preloaded with your standards such as ATMs/Banks, Restaurants, Hotels, Gas Stations, etc, it will help you effortlessly find what you’re looking for. Nothing proves that the GPS you bought was worth the money quicker than seeing your gas light come on in the middle of nowhere and not having to scramble to find your AAA card, since you already know where the next gas station is and how to get there.

The C220 has a mini USB connection on the bottom of the unit that does double duty by allowing you to download maps when connected to your PC (to the SD card anyway) and acts as a charging port when in the vehicle. The system is powered by its Lithium Ion battery, and charged/operated on a 12v cigarette lighter plug style adapter. The mount is your standard lever-loaded suction cup device, similar to the popular Garmin suction mount.

FEATURES: 2 hour Lithium Ion battery, SiRFstar III (20 channel) GPS receiver, 3.5″ diagonal color TFT display (320×240 resolution), built in speaker, 3.5mm headphone output jack, full touchscreen interface, pre-installed Mio Map 3.2, maps preloaded on SD card, turn-by-turn voice prompting (no text to speech), US maps preloaded on SD Card

PROS: low price (Sub-$200), fast mapping animation, easy to use

CONS: maps aren’t all that accurate, hard to see screen in strong sunlight, hard to adjust volume, no internal memory for maps (SD card only)

RATING: 3.9/5.0

Excellent budget GPS, but there are better out there that aren’t much more expensive. Would make a great gift.

-Bill

TheGPSGuy Blog – http://www.thegpsguy.info :: bill at thegpsguy dot info