Mitac Mio 268 and 269 GPS handhelds
By Dan Wu 
posted November 22nd 2004 3:05AM
posted November 22nd 2004 3:05AM
We got word of
Mitac's new Mio 188 handheld last month, which has just
been renamed the Mio 268. We originally thought it'd was going to run on the Pocket PC OS, but apparently now it's
powered by regular old Windows CE 4.2 and comes with an XScale 300MHz processor, 64MB of RAM, an SD memory slot, and an
onboard a SiRF XT2 GPS receiver. There's also another version called the Mio 269 that will include a 2.5GB mini hard
drive loaded with maps. Release date is set for January 2005, but only for Europe (US release unknown).
I publish a magazine and we just tested the MIO 268 -
It’s freebie time!!!
At first I was overjoyed that my dear buddy Dennis actually got me a freebie, after reading my test of the new MIO 268 you guess whether he’s a mate or was playing a practical joke.
Now, as you’ve read over the past three issues I seem to have a talent for attaining assets, obtaining objects, in fact a gift at gathering gadgets and so I was a little surprised that Dennis had managed to get his mitts on a brand new Sat-Nav system after my now renowned joy of driving around to unknown places and postcodes to show how great my SDA and ALK GPS system is.
Let’s set the scene; I’m feeling a little worse for ware – two hours sleep after partying the night away with some of the gorgeous girls from Siemens, ORA, Nokia & Orange at a thourghly enjoyable industry event – and I arrive at the Kensington restaurant which is where we have our monthly editorial meeting. Dennis passes over a plastic bag and inside the magical acronym ‘G-P-S’ – yippee!
After 10 hours of some very serious meeting I got home and ripped the box to shreds (no chance of selling the kit on eBay now), inside I find another box, then another and another – it’s a bloody tardis of wires but nevertheless the expectations are rising.
All this packaging goes in the bin, down the dump, into landfill, gives off CO2 & methane, increases global warming, burns the planet to a crisp until it disintegrates into a black hole – a doorway to a parallel universe… we’ll come back to this thought.
So, I grab a drink at another mates waiting for the six hour battery charge.
We’re on and ready to go.
On paper the MIO 268 has got it all – remember how the SDA would have been perfect if it had a touch screen and an inbuilt GPS receiver – well as you’d expect from a specific GPS unit, it has it.
I turned it on (with the aid of the antenna extension) it came to life – receiving info from seven satellites from the get go.
As part of the set up you put your home address in so you can use the ‘go home button’ – nice touch – and apart from turning the planet into a black hole, this was the first problem.
Postcode search? LIE! It doesn’t like postcodes.
Okay, enter the town instead – mmm… good.
Now the street – mmm… what do you mean it doesn’t bloody exist, I’m sitting here!
After 2 hours (2 HOURS!) it transpires that ‘Saint’ or ‘St’ or ‘St.’ must be inputted as ‘St,’ and ‘Peters Road’ doesn’t exist, although ‘Peter,s Road’ does – I’ll make sure the Royal Mail is updated!
I now have the right proper royal hump, and if I didn’t have to write 1000 words on this I would have settled for ‘MIO 268 – it’s CR*P’ and hope you guys got the message.
Moving on, after another 30 minutes of trying to input the house number I decide to read the instructions of this ‘ready to go out of the box solution’.
No manual.
Oh, here it is – CD-ROM Pdf’s – this was the highlight. The manufacturers website finishes .be I’m guessing these guys are Belgium whom I’m guessing aren’t known for being too funny, but at £350 retail the instructions alone are worth the cash – “nowsh thissh is the big rule, roadsh drivingsh in yours country is the most important andsh more become comes from the speakings of thish device – you musht accept dish” – I knew there was a reasopn I didn’t read instructions!
So I soldiered on – hooray – it all got a whole lot better. Plug in the USB cable and download the sync software and all your 2,000 outlook contacts download to the GPS, now we’re moving.
The MIO sucked up all my contacts in seconds – wow! I disconnected the GPS and went into the contacts – all there, hadn’t deleted my contacts from outlook, it worked! Good, good. After going through the contacts I pressed the screen where the ‘go to’ button was – you know the button on a GPS that holds your contacts that allows you to drive there with the slightly sexy chic telling you where to get off – yeah you know the one. Well, I pressed and I pressed and I pressed, guessed it yet? There was no button to integrate the contacts to the GPS – what’s the POINT!!!!! Arrgggg!!!!
It would have made up for everything, don’t worry about trying for two hours to put your home address in – just press the button – who are these people!!!
Whilst testing a GPS system it’s probably worth trying to go somewhere – admittedly this was particularly difficult but I did drive half way to Buckingham Palace and back home again – the software runs about 3 seconds behind the road, not a problem in the Scottish Highlands, but, in central London it’s driving ban time, probably why ‘yoush should not listen to the speakingsh of dish device’ – frankly because it doesn’t work.
Some guy in a garage has taken a plastic remote control cover , stuck on a piece of glass and thrown in a microchip from a washing machine – surrounded this with loads and loads of boxes and sold it to Halfords.
Now they’re asking us to sell it to you – we won’t – it’s rubbish.
Sorry, I nearly forgot, it plays MP3s – yippee – through a speaker smaller than a five pence piece – BOOOO! – and when downloading the software for it… it loads almost 300 shortcuts to your desk top. I would have driven to MIO and assainated them all, but, you guessed it, the 268 wouldn’t accept the address – lucky, lucky Belgium’s.
Admittedly if you do sell one of these you’ll get customer retention – they’ll keep coming back, hopefully not with a baseball bat!
Oh, back to the black hole – don’t they suck everything around them into a parallel dimension?
It’s probably the only place where this piece of kit will work!
Stock them at your peril.
PS – Thanks Dennis!
PPS – if you’re the Marketing Director for MIO you are having a very bad nightmare and the advertising guys at ************* Magazine will give you a really, really good deal – now turn the page and you can wake up.
so would you say this is shit then?
Mein Mio 268 meldet das die Grafikkarte schon ein Jahr alt ist und bis 15% abweichungen aufweist.Unter welcher Adresse kann ich die neue Version Download.Gekauf am 01.Sept.2005 Scheidegger Bern via Jnternet.