I’m wondering how the TomTom One series compares to the Mio DigiWalker series, as my Mio experience hasn’t been too good, as seen in my review below…
Mio C220/C230 DigiWalker GPS review
I’ve been contemplating picking up an inexpensive GPS device for a while now, the “company car” (2000 Honda Oddysey minivan) has an integrated GPS in the dash, and the few times i’ve driven it, I found it rather cool, definitely a techie little gadget, and I like gadgets…
My new Saturn Ion’s OnStar thingy can be upgraded to the “Directions and Connections” package for an additional $100/year, and that would give me similar door-to-door driving directions as a GPS, but would lack the display (D&C is all audio-only directions on my car)
So, it’s not worth it in my mind, so I started researching portable GPS units, nothing fancy, just cheap, basic units, it came down to the TomTom One and the Mio DigiWalker C220, the main reason for considering the TTO (the John Cleese voice pack) no longer seems to be available, so the TTO lost some points there
I had never heard of the Mio product line, but they seemed to review well, and they were on special at my local Ratshack, so I figured it’d be worth a try
basics; 400MHz processor, 32MB RAM, 1 GB SD card with US map, running windoze CE 5.0 :vomit:
I would have preferred a non-windoze based GPS, but all the units in my price range were windoze based, so I held my nose, repressed my gag reflex, and purchased the Mio 220
so far, I’ve managed to crash WinCE (appropriate acronym, dontcha think 
) 8 times already, once, by plotting a course, turning the unit off, and removing the map card, then powering it back up and telling it to recalibrate the route <evil grin>, the second crash was after the hard reset, and crash #3 was simply switching the transport mode from Car to Pedestrian, (and trying to plot a course to work over the highway <evil grin>), other crashes were just in normal use of the device, and at least three of them were hard OS crashes, complete with the “Illegal Operation” dialog box
a simple hard-reset fixed the problem, but it did nothing to improve my already dim view of WinCE, that said, as long as I don’t deliberately try to confuse the thing, it seems to be stable, but trying to confuse it is just so much fun…
After a few days playing with the 220, something was clearly wrong with it, it would now randomly crash and lock up during use, the final straw was on 11/12/07, when the 220 locked up solid on the road leading to work, the first time it’s ever locked up on me in actual usage, UNACCEPTABLE!
I returned it, and went the next step “up” in the line, to the Mio 230, which takes the basic 220, updates the maps to the most current build, adds in a Text-To-Speech voice that reads off street names, BUT drops a signifigant amount of POI entries, it drops from 3 million to 900,000, I’m not particularly happy with this either
Accuracywise, it’s not too bad, no GPS is ever going to give you perfect door-to-door accuracy, especially in the rural areas, the personal navsystem manufacturers like to present the happy fiction that their product will get you to your destination with 100% accuracy, but that’s not always the case
for example, the Mio thought my home was actually at the end of our road, it was off by a good 600 yards or so, my physical lot number is 14 <anytown street>, so when I reset my home point to the actual home point, parked in the driveway, it identified it as 57 <anytown street>, my work address was off by a similar distance, it thought we were in the old abandoned movie theatre, when we were in the minimall right next to it, not 100% accurate, but these were coordinates I had to enter anyway, so accuracy might be a little on the low side for user-entered “Points of Interest”, it gets you to the general location smoothly enough
it also recalibrates routes incredibly fast, usually within 5 seconds or so of leaving the “expected” route, and the re-routing is generally accurate, I can go to work over surface streets (slower, more direct) or the highway (faster, but further), this morning it wanted to route me via surface streets, but when I took the highway it actually plotted the exact route i take to get to work anyway
the animation in the 2D map mode is fast and smooth and very fluid, it gives you a good idea of where you are in relation to the roads around you, the “pseudo-3D” "Cockpit view " is a little choppier, animationwise, but still reasonably smooth, the 3D Cockpit also has an automatic-pan/zoom virtual camera, on long roads, the camera is generally behind and above the vehicle marker, looking down in a somewhat isometric view, however, as you approach turns, the camera zooms in and hovers more "above* the marker, allowing you a more top-down view of the corner, the 230 drops frames when speaking road names though, when announcing road names, the animation gets a tad choppy
the voice prompts on the 220 are simple directional changes “turn right in 50 feet”, “enter highway in 1/4 mile” “roundabout and take the third exit” type of thing, the 230 adds Text-To Speech here (“Turn right onto Mirona Road in 50 feet”), you want that feature, it’s going to cost you an additional $100 for the C230
you can set the info gauges in Cockpit to Distance to Destination, Distance Travelled, Time to Destination, Speed, etc…, however you can only choose 3, the speedometer is pretty darned accurate and responsive, and even has the ability to alert you if you’re speeding, if there are traffic control cameras in your area, these are also noted
the 220 has a massive database of Points of Interest (POI), museums, theatres, movie theaters, gas stations, shopping locations, airports, etc…, and you can add your own POI’s to the database, the 220 contains around 3 million POI’s, the 230, however, loses a large number of them (down to 900,000, mostly gas stations, resturants, and emergency facilities), Mio claims this was done in order to fit the updated maps and the TTS software into the 230’s 1 GB flash ram, it does have an SD card socket, but currently there are no updated maps or POI databases that will work with the 230
…and last night, the 230 crashed on me as well (Fatal Exception Error again!, all i did was have it plugged into my keyboard (USB 1.1) to charge it
I’m really starting to get pissed off with the Mio product line, when they work, they’re great GPS’es, they have much smoother and more user freindly map scrolling and zooming than the TomToms, the Mio’s map redraws itself in real time when scrolled, zoomed, or tilted to pseudo-3D, not like the “pause and redraw” or “Zoom and redraw” of the TomToms, using the Mio as a mapping tool is much easier than the TomTom
however, Mio is noncommital on Mac support, TT supports the Mac, Mio expects it’s users to purchase new maps when they’re released in 2008, at a price that’s almost as much as a new GPS unit, TT has free map updates, and the maps can be edited/improved by the userbase, no outdated roads or POI, the TT can also be customized with voice packs and other enhancements, the Mios are uncustomizeable, OTOH, the Mio has superior map interactivity, a true QWERTY predictive keyboard (TT has an ABC keyboard), the ability to have multiple VIAs and waypoints, but you’re locked into the existing map database and anemic POI database
I’m contemplating just saying “screw it”, and returning the Mio, and getting a TomTom One (most likely the One LE from Best Buy on Black Friday, it’s on special then for a killer price), it may not have as nice a mapping mode, but at least it’s not running that pathetic excuse for an OS WinCE, these lockups may be par for the course with windows-based OS’s, but I’m a Mac user, I expect things to just work, I haven’t had a hardware crash on either my PowerBook G4 or G4 Mirror Door tower in over 3 years, and I use them hard every day
So, what’s the Straight Dope on TomTom GPS units (the One series, in particular)?