Mio P550 3.5-Inch Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I don't recommend this item. There are a couple of pluses, but there are a number of problems:

First, the pluses--
--The price is good for a GPS unit and PDA.
--The SIRF III GPS received is responsive, receiving good reception even inside my house (except for the basement).
--The Wifi is fast.

Now the minuses:

--The battery life is poor.I ran through a fully charged battery in a little over an hour with the Wifi on.
--The screen is poor quality.There is bleeding of text and images and the resolution does not appear good.Possibly, this is because the screen is quite large for 320x240 resolution.
--The PDA functions are not integrated with the mapping and GPS functions. E.g., there does not appear to be a way to access your contacts list within the Mio Maps.
--Mio Maps is clunky software.It requires multiple taps and is not intuitive.
--There are typical Windows Mobile memory problems because applications do not shut down when closed.I guess I'll need to pursue the third party software route to address this problem.
--Internet Explorer is a dated and inconvenient browser for mobile devices.It doesn't format pages well and will not load secure sites such as Chase Banking.I downloaded Opera mobile but they want to charge $24 for a registered copy.
--The device is quite heavy.It is industrial in appearance; not attractive but not terribly ugly.It is a bit odd that the screen is so recessed.
--I was surprised that the device connects to ActiveSync via USB 1.1.This causes synchronization to be very slow.
--Skype did not work very well even though I have a very fast home Wifi network.
--Almost no software came with device (only Worldmate, Mio Mapping and the basic Windows Mobile).Outlook was not even included.This is a first, in my experience.

I haven't used the mapping software extensively.It's based on TeleAtlas.

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Product Description:
Perfect for any road trip, the Mio P550 Portable GPS Multimedia Navigation System is a versatile navigation device, providing full PDA capability, Internet access via built-in Wi-Fi, and wireless connectivity with Bluetooth. Both affordable and stylish, the Mio P550 makes it easier than ever to get where you are going, even when you aren't quite sure where that might be. And because the P550 is compatible with most Windows Mobile 5 software, you can use it for off-road navigation as well.
Since it runs on the Windows Mobile 5 operating platform, the Mio P550 can support the GPS software of your choice. This means you are not restricted as to where and when you can use GPS, nor do you need different devices depending on the activity you want to use them for, for ultimate flexibility. For the road, the manufacturer does recommend Mio Map software, which guides you to your destination with a seamless journey, and has maps of the US and 24 European countries available. However, the P550 is equally in its element if you want to go sailing, biking, or hiking, requiring you to just add the software and get going. The highly sensitive SirfStar III GPS chipset in the P550 can receive signals from up to 20 satellites for extremely accurate positioning, even in the toughest terrain. And when it comes to connecting the receiver, you don't have to worry about getting tangled up with external antenna and extra wires, because it is already built-in. Slim and sleek, the P550 has an ultra-compact design offering pocket-sized portability that's perfect whether you are traveling on foot, by bike or in your car. The Mio P550 even makes exchanging files quick and easy via reliable, high-speed Bluetooth connectivity for synchronizing your Outlook or calendar with your desktop computer.
More than a convenient navigator, the P550 can be used with SD/MMC cards to store pictures, MP3 files, videos, and eBooks, turning this unit into a multimedia entertainment center. Now you can always take a couple of eBooks, your favorite MP3s, a film or two, and your photo album along, in the convenience of a standard memory card. And since you are only limited by your number of SD/MMC cards, you can read on the train, show relatives your family snaps, or listen to music strolling around town, taking unlimited entertainment with you wherever you go. The Mio P550 also offers all the advantages a surprisingly powerful, incredibly versatile PDA running Windows Mobile. Providing access to all Microsoft Office Pocket applications, you can go through your PowerPoint presentation, edit Word documents or create an Excel spreadsheet any time you need to, so you'll always be prepared and up to speed. And when you've had enough of work, you can also use the P550 to play games to pass the time, or use the Wi-Fi to get online and surf the Internet.
The Mio Digiwalker P550 utilizes a 3.5-inch color resistive, anti-glare LCD touch-screen display with LED backlighting, 65,000 colors and 320 x 240 pixels of resolution. This unit includes 64 MB of on-board RAM, 128 MB of memory, and infinitely expandable memory via the built-in SD/MMC card slot that is SD/IO compatible. The P550 includes a USB 1.1 connector, a built-in speaker and mono microphone, a 3.5-millimeter headphone jack, and an internal rechargeable 1,200 mAh lithium-ion battery. This unit utilizes Bluetooth 1.2 wireless technology, and 802.11 b and g Wi-Fi connectivity. The included cradle doesn't just hold your navigator, but will also charge the battery while you drive when connected to the power cable. Combined with the windshield mount, this cradle forms a very solid device holder, providing investment security and preventing vibrations. The Mio Digiwalker P550 portable GPS multimedia navigator weighs six ounces, measures 2.8 x 4.5 x 0.7 inches (W x H x D), and is backed by a manufacturer's one-year warranty.
What's in the Box
Mio Digiwalker P550 portable PDA and navigator, device holder, windshield mount, AC power adapter, DC in-vehicle power adapter, USB cable, CD with user's manual, getting started CD, license agreement, windshield mount guide, quick start guide, Mio club registration card and warranty card.

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Navman PiN 100 Portable GPS Pocket PC Navigation System Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)After seeing the terrible review at InfoSyncWorld, I became very worried that I was going to regret having just purchased the Navman PiN 100. There is very little in the way of reviews for this product so I will try to be as thorough as I can.

As a Pocket PC, I am completely satisfied with the Navman PiN 100. It is actually just a Mio DigiWalker (it even has the Mio DigiWalker logo on the back of it) so if you have seen reviews for that, then this is the same thing. It runs Windos Mobile 2003, has one expansion slot (an SDIO slot), and a suitably fast CPU and on-device storage & memory. I have used it as a Pocket PC for many things now and have not once felt the hardware specs to be lacking. Handwriting recognition is still awful but that is something to mention in a review of Windows Mobile 2003 operating system itself, not the Navman.

You WILL need a 256 or 512MB SD card to hold maps. The included 32MB card is basically worthless, I left it in the box and never used it. Many if not most states are over 30MB and that means you would not even be able to load them onto the card. I suggest getting one of those 256MB cards with wifi ability built-in, then you can kill two birds with one stone. Wifi is a neat thing to have.

As an in-car GPS solution, the Navman is hands-down absolutely the best value on the market. For under $500 (which is including the absolutely necessary additional purchase of a memory card) you get a Pocket PC, all necessary cables, an unobtrusive GPS receiver, a windshield mount, a car charger/adapter, and of course the Smart ST v2 GPS software. The Garmin iQue 3600 is its closest competitor -- I tried it too and decided the Navman PiN was both the better value and the superior product (bigger, brighter screen among many other things). Unfortunately the Navman PiN package feels exactly like what it is -- not one well-integrated product but a box of products sold as a bundle. When you open the box you are confronted with several envelopes, nearly a half dozen CD-ROMs, three different user manuals, and a confusing pile of cords and accessories. They burden you with actually loading the Smart ST v2 software on the Pocket PC, before you load it on your PC, register it and activate it, then install ActiveSync from another CD, and a bunch of other hassles like configuring the GPS COM port and baud rate -- TOO many hassles -- before you are finally ready to use the product. There was so much paperwork in the box that I spent several confused minutes wondering where the serial number was that the software wanted in order to install it. I would like to see the software pre-loaded on the handheld and all of the necessary stuff for your PC come on one single DVD ROM. I just plunked down 5 benjamins for a GPS toy, do you think I have not found myself a DVD drive for my computer yet? Get with the 21st century people.

Battery life is certainly better than the iQue 3600. It is at least 3 or 4 hours but I haven't done any real tests so I don't have an actual figure to give.

The GPS receiver takes some time to pick up satellites. Anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes on your first use, and 2 to 5 minutes from a cold start after that. It seems like definitely longer if you are moving. This is too long in my opinion, I don't know if other receivers are better, or not. As an in-car device I generally want to take it out of my pocket, put it on the dash, and have it ready to go. Instead I have to sort of sit there in the car for a few minutes or just wait until the first stoplight to check on where I am or where I am going.

The car charger is just that -- nothing to say about it. It gets the job done and is nice to have. The windshield mount is a suction cup mount and secures excellently to the windshield. I wish I could say the same for how well it secures the handheld. It barely does at all. It sort of just cradles it lightly. If you put your Navman in it without the utmost care, it is liable to fall right out. That is NOT good. I recommend angling it back some so that gravity holds it in a little. This seems to work for me. I would have rather it clipped in or snapped in, but no.

The rest of this review is going to sound pretty harsh because I don't really like the GPS software that the Navman PiN comes with (Smart ST v2 2.00.0036 SP2). It is promising, but fatally flawed. I want to say up front though, that I would not give up using this device just because I think the software sucks. I just deal with the frustrations and hope there will be an update to iron them out later.

First off, the map view. The map view is gorgeous, in full 16-bit color, with color coded roads to show your route, the current road you're on, roads that pass under/over your road, and little arrows indicating direction of traffic. Major and minor roads are different colors, and the roadnames are displayed very clearly and legibly. Geography like lakes and forest is marked with blue and green. The view switches to a 3D angled view whenever you are on a route to a destination, and rotates so that up is always your heading and you can see more in front of you than behind. The graphics are state-of-the-art for this market and nothing in its price range with the exception of TomTom Navigator can touch it. Your friends will be impressed.

The voice navigation is well-timed and intelligible, with the exception of "make a legal u-turn" which to most people sounds like "make illegal u-turn" (worth a few laughs). Voice only says when to turn and which direction, it doesn't say the street name or even highway number, which is too bad but that's typical for a PocketPC program.

The two big disasters of this software are its address input for destinations and routing, and the routing algorithm itself. These are the fatally flawed features which keep me from recommending this device to anyone who would get frustrated easily.

When inputting an address, you are allowed to select from your contacts (a Windows Mobile 2003 feature), however if you do this, you will 100% of the time be told that you have selected an invalid address. Sometimes this is because the map data is 18 months old and doesn't know this address exists, but most of the time it will accept the address if you re-enter it by hand. This is unacceptable. Also, when you start entering it by hand, it will suggest a drop down list of possible locations, and they will all seem pretty much like the same place. There is no way to tell if the address you are entering should be in Richmond VA, Richmond MCD VA, or one of several other entries for what is obviously the same place. Then you will enter a street, for instance Lotus Lane, but it will not be found because you didn't type Lotus La. This is asinine. Entering the address for a destination takes 5 mintues because of this nonsense, when it should take 5 seconds. And you will have to do this every time you enter the address, unless you pick destinations off of your "Recent" list. Once, I loaded a destination off of my contact list and ignored the "invalid address" warning and Smart ST2 routed me to some completely non-related location of the same town. From now on I make sure I do the address input in the way it wants it.

As for routing, it has a lot of quirks. I will describe some of the ones I have experienced. To put it blunty, it can recommend some DUMB routes -- I mean really out of your way sometimes. I use "quickest" navigation and "shortest distance" is even worse. Once it took me to what appeared to be a complete dead end, and the map said I could keep going -- not without a machete I couldn't. I drew an "avoid area" and the route put me back on the course I should have stayed on in the first place. Other times, it takes you pretty close to where you have to go and says you have reached your destination, but you could be anywhere from one to eight blocks away from where you need to be. This can be frustrating if you fight hard for a parking spot in the city and get out and realize you still have to walk 8 blocks. It might have to do with the way the software estimates street addresses. It uses ranges of addresses and estimation to guess where a particular street address is. Sometimes this works reasonably well and other times (when ranges are large) it doesn't work at all. You might be better off never giving it a street address. Instead only give it street intersections and take yourself from there. Autorouting works fairly well, but Smart ST2 is slow to route anything, and so it will display a question mark for a minute or two until it suggests a new route. Sometimes when you know better and have a better route in mind, it will stubbornly insist you make a u-turn at every cross street until finally re-routing and "seeing the light" of what route you had in mind. I have seen other PocketPC software be smarter and faster at re-routing.

So in conclusion, I highly recommend this product to geeks willing to deal with some quirks (and hope for fixes), but not to the general public who would probably be hopelessly frustrated by the routing and input problems, despite the pretty interface and good value.

P.S. my review of the software is of the version after you apply the currently available patch on Navman's site. Before I did this, all of the routing problems I mentioned above were like twice as bad, and I would have given two stars instead of three. When reading any poor reviews of the Navman PiN, try to check if they are using the software before or after the patch.

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Product Description:
Navman PIN 100 PORTABLE GPS POCKET PC NAVIGATION SYSTEM

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Navman PiN 570 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a decent GPS device and a fine Pocket PC.I'd give it 3.5 stars if possible.

Pros:

1) It's a perfectly decent Pocket PC.I've owned several, and this is no worse than any of them except for CPU speed and RAM.It's perfectly OK and actually pretty decent looking.Its lights (charging, charged, etc.) keep you well informed.

2) The GPS functions work pretty well.The software for the PC is quite good.You can load maps to main memory and/or the SD card (your choice per map).You get a lot of control with reasonable ease of use.The US maps seem pretty good (but not up-to-date with the very latest street changes).

3) It's priced VERY attractively.Consider that you're getting a fully-functional PDA (with MP3 playback, games you can download, etc.) AND a GPS device with a 3.5" color touch-screen.Amazon is a great retailer and has a good price, but I did manage to pay fifty less on sale elsewhere.

4) If you make a "wrong" turn (intentionally or not), it's pretty quick to recalculate the route and give intelligent new instructions.

5) You can switch among 4 screens while navigating: 2D map (and you can zoom in & out and drag to scroll), 3D map, list of directions with current step highlighted, or a "large" screen of what the next major step will be (and how soon).To avoid being distracted while driving, that last screen may be your best friend.You probably don't need the maps much while driving -- just while planning the trip or if you pull over.DON'T DRIVE DISTRACTED!

6) This may annoy some people, but I like that it gives verbal directions about upcoming forks/intersections, even if you only need to continue going straight.It's reassuring.

Cons:

1) The mounting hardware is somewhat awkward.The device needs a pretty good line-of-sight to the satellites, so you really want it close to the windshield (unless you buy an external antenna, which I may).

2) Entering destination addresses is slow because the software tries to anticipate what you're entering as you enter each part.It has to consult its database, so you must wait until it creates a list of possibilities at each step.But you only have to do this occasionally (when you enter locations), so it's not a big deal.It doesn't affect you at driving time.

3) It doesn't speak the names of the streets as it tells you to turn.Some GPS devices (including the one in my wife's Motorola RAZR V3m phone) do.Again, not a huge issue.

4) The screen can get washed out in bright sunlight, especially since you need to have it pretty close to the glass (windshield) for it to have a consistent connection to the satellites.But if you've looked at the map ahead of time, you really don't need the screen that much while driving -- the voice will tell you what to do.Another side effect of having to mount it so close to the glass is that it's farther from your face, so it can be harder to read.But, as I said before, if you get an external antenna, then you can presumably mount the PDA anywhere, so it will be more shaded and closer to your eyes.

Bottom line:

If you're wealthy, get a car with a large, built-in navigation system.If you're semi-wealthy, get a stand-alone, larger-screen, top-of-the line nav system for 3 or 4 times this price.But if you are on a budget and want a nice nav system and a good PDA for one low price, this can't be beat!

PS: I did NOT experience the crashing or power problems that another reviewer mentioned.

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Product Description:
If you're on the go a lot, you need a device that can combine personal information management, scheduling, and navigation features into a single, pocketable device. The PiN 570 from Navman is just such a device. It can change the way you work and play.

Navigate to contacts in your Outlook address book.

Fits in the palm of your hand. Enter a contact, make an appointment, and get voice guidance to that appointment location when you need it. And while you're at it, enjoy the convenience of a Windows Mobile device with mobile versions of your favorite applications, music, games, photos, and more.


Navigation and PDA features, all in one. Because the PiN 570 is made by Navman, it's first and foremost a navigation device. The unit's GPS navigation system will guide you with 3-D door-to-door maps and voice directions, all at the press of a button. You can travel directly to your Microsoft Outlook contacts using the PiN 570's integrated 12-channel GPS receiver, which is powered by Navman's SmartST 2005 software. Turn-by-turn voice guidance, back-on-track rerouting, a choice of 2-D or 3-D map perspectives, a points-of-interest database for your map region, and multiple route planning are just some of the features packed into the PiN 570's navigation software. You'll also get the convenience of area avoidance--if traffic is bad, you can tell the unit to automatically change your route and keep you moving. The Navman PiN 570 comes complete with North American maps, including Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Guam, on CD-ROM, so you can easily download your preferred region to an included SecureDigital (SD) Card.
The PiN 570 sports a 3.5-inch landscape LCD with 320 x 240 resolution and support for up to 65,000 colors--plenty of room for detailed map views, as well as for the unit's integrated PDA functions. Get all the functionality you expect from a Windows Mobile 2003 device, including pocket versions of Microsoft Outlook, Word, and Excel. You can also listen to music and MP3 files, play games, or store and view digital photos. The PiN 570's interface is touchscreen-enabled, so every function is just a few taps away. And because the 570 fits in the palm of your hand, you can move from car to car or set out on foot with powerful features at your fingertips. From your desk to your dashboard, the Navman PiN 570 will navigate you through your day.

What's in the Box
PiN 570 unit, SmartST 2005 3D navigation software with preloaded TeleAtlas Mapping Data, AC charger, DC in-car charger, USB data transfer cable, flexible windshield mount, and leather-feel carry case.

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