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Mio C310 GPS receiver / MP3 player reviewed
Personal Tech Pipeline got a chance to tour around with Mio's C310 portable GPS receiver with built-in DAP that we first spotted at CES, and claim that although the unit is a pretty good value, its performance is a bit underwhelming. Rather than building a product from the ground up like the Garmins and Magellans of the world, Mio has assembled a Windows CE-powered unit featuring software from Destinator Technologies and maps from TeleAtlas -- which, while not necessarily a bad thing, means some of the features aren't as polished as they are on vertically-integrated products. For example, PTP found that many important options were buried under several sub-menus, which made simple tasks like changing to night mode or selecting a new destination while driving more difficult than they should be, and probably more dangerous. The C310 seemed to perform its navigation duties fairly well, though, and even ships with ActiveSync for loading up your Outlook contacts' addresses, but little annoyances like a cluttered 3.5-inch screen and awful built-in speakers might be enough to convince most folks to put their $600 towards a more expensive model that operates a little more smoothly.
Mio C810 PMP with DMB and GPS
Here's the latest multifunction portable that won't make its way out of Korea (hint: if you see DMB in the description, that's usually the case): the Mio C810, a portable media player with a DMB receiver and GPS. The player has a 4.3-inch LCD, four-hour battery life, and supports multiple audio and video formats.
Mio A701 GPS-enabled Windows Mobile smartphone reviewed
On paper, the Mio A701 smartphone sounds like almost the perfect convergence device, sporting a Windows Mobile 5.0-powered 520MHz Xscale processor, SiRF III GPS receiver, tri-band GSM radio, Bluetooth, and a 1.3 megapixel camera. Sadly, at least according to Reg Hardware, the A701 has so many little faults that the device is often barely usable, and sounds like a skip except for those folks who absolutely must have GPS and aren't into the square-screened iPaq hw6xxx series from HP. Some of the Reg's gripes with this model include its crappy camera (one of the worst they've ever seen, apparently), GPRS-only data connection, flimsy telescoping stylus, lack of dedicated buttons for WM5 softkey control, and buggy navigation software (luckily it's optional). Besides the full suite of accessories that come included in the box, there doesn't seem to be much good to say about the $660 to $790 A701, which is no doubt a big disappointment to those who may have been looking to import what appeared to be such a hot phone.
