The Mio C210 is certainly small and that is a distinct advantage in your average supermini which has about enough dash space for the all ants 5 a side football tournament. So obligingly Mio have chopped down the C210 with a small but bright 2.7" screen all packaged into a neat unit (85x59x40mm) which attaches to the car via a variety of familiar mounting systems. We opted for the gooseneck windscreen sucker, this is longer than your average gooseneck as the small unit needs to be a bit closer to you in order to be operated safely and comfortably.

With the unit safely secured in our test car we could begin the initial set-up. The UK version comes equipped with Tele Atlas maps of Great Britain (excluding Ireland) and the major routes map of Europe, another 24 countries can be added by additional purchase and the combined MMC / SD lot which can support data cards up to 2gb in size.

The first time to fix (TTF) is always the longest and we were impressed with the latest SirFstar III chipset used in the C210 which had acquired lock in just under 3 minutes. On initial power up you have to set a few basics like language, time / date and guidance language before Mio Map V3 loads up on the windows CE operating system.

Once up and running the main me u screen offers you the ability to go to the map or cockpit view plus enter your destination, modify favourites or POI. To get us underway we set in a familiar route that takes in a fair chunk of A and B road mixed with a quick dash on the motorway. Destinations are set by address starting with country then city then street, it isn't as fast as postcode entry but assuming you are always in the UK you need only enter the city and road. Your possible list of destinations narrows with each key press which is acceptable although we did find the small screen combined with small on screen keys meant you need small fingers to accurately type.

The C210 quickly plotted our first router and selected a route which was very close to that of our TomTom Go 500, so we set off following the on screen and audible instruction of the Mio, the two on screen viewed either either a overhead traditional map with minimal extra data or a drivers view with a more 3D view and facts like time to destination. On the reduced screen size we found the less on screen clutter the better and opted for the simple map.

We set off on the 50 minute drive and the Mio started well with good directions in plenty of time before the turns, however it wasn't long before we found the first flaw with the smaller footprint unit. As we started on the motorway section the road noise started to build up to a point where we struggled to hear the instructions, after wading through 2 levels of menus while on the move we managed to find that we were already on the maximum volume and that the speed related volume was in fact switched off. It was a good job we hadn't opted to put the radio on or we'd never have heard any instructions even at low speeds.

Luckily the on screen instructions are clear and concise making it fairly easy to follow and fill in the bits of audio you miss. We tried throwing a few wrong turns and the Mio quickly plotted a revised route and got us back on track. In fact you can tune the routing performance of the C210 in the menu system by selecting between modes of transport (walking/ cycle / car), types of road to be used and also avoiding U turns.

As often happens on our journeys the return trip hit some roadwork's on the M25 and required a bit of a diversion, the Mio does have a divert or avoid feature but it is buried 2 menus down on a fiddly little button, hardly ideal when on the move and you need to make a split second choice on leaving the motorway. This then combined with the gooseneck mount which was wobbling a lot at high speed to make it nigh on impossible to operate the small on screen menus and effectively making us pull over to use the system. Of course by law this is what you should do and we would encourage you to do so. However in the real world most users keep moving and try and operate systems one handed and to do this with the C210 would frankly be dangerous.

We tried a few more complex routes through out our weeks of testing and the route planning proved itself time and time again, even with multipoint drops which would make the little Mio suitable for reps and delivery drivers. The POI system works well and there is a rather nifty free offer from Mio allowing 1 years free use of a speed camera database from the date of registration of your system.

When looking through the GPS menu settings we found that the unit should support an external TMC antenna which then in turn can be used to display traffic conditions and by the looks of it automatically route around problems?  Sadly we didn't have the antenna to test with although the auto reroute would have made an interesting review.

Another oddity of the little Mio is the lack of an internal rechargeable battery, instead you'll need to fit 4 x AA batteries to the back of the unit which will allow either 5 hours of operation or at least retain your personal settings. We were caught out by this when we took the batteries out and found that even when the unit was powered up on the 12 volt car lead it needed configuring from scratch as if it had been switched on for the first time.

Overall we have to admit to being a little disappointed with the Mio and it falls short of getting our recommendation, primarily because of its low speaker volume and difficult to use interface, the routing is good and it is a nice package, we can even live the the AA batteries but a system you can't hear or operate on the move just isn't right. Priced at around £179 it does offer value for money, but if it were our case we have to grudgingly opt for the Garmin i3 which surprisingly is still the best mini SatNav.

Published - 06/08/2006

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