MIO C250 - my 2 cents

[JethroUK]

Bought the C250 for £159 incl after watching a shopping channel
- The menus look pretty/inviting but are actually very poorly laid out
- Not user friendly and not at all intuative
- Instruction book shed very little light on the useage
- User manual (on the CD supplied) explains more about ""playing mp3's"" on it than explaining the Sat nav features e.g.
+ the machine is already loaded with a gazzillion 'Places of Interest' (Petrol Stations, Resterants, Theatres, etc) to which you can add 'your own places of interest' - however you can't 'add' these in the 'POI' menu (that would be too obvious), you have to find it buried in one of the 'settings' menus (of which there are several??) - if you ever do find it (and most won't) you still can't add your own POI because whilsts there is a button to 'Manage your POI' it's not apparent how to do it - it's not listed in the quick start guide, it's not listed in the user manual either - GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

P.S. I teach computers for a living, so if I found it difficult to use then...???

+ Mio could fix all these issues in one afternoon and update it on the web - but they wont
+ The touch screen is great
+ Colours/graphics are great
+ No buttons (all done on screen)
+ Voice is very clear (even with radio on quite loud)
+ i think it's better looking than the competition + i even think the 'Mio' logo is sexier than the others
+ no issues with reception
+ you can find a site by full address (which is amazingly quick/easy with auto complete) and it will take you right to the front door + you can find just the street (if you dont know the number), or even just the town
+ full postcode search
+ it calculates the route very quickly (even a 300+ mile journey was near instantanious)
+ it keeps a history of places you've been so you dont need to programme them in again
+ You can do high-speed a 'FLY OVER' your route (like a 'dry run' without going anywhere)
+ You can pretty well add as many 'via's' as you like
+ speed camera warning (+ speed limit warnings if you want)
+ it plays mp3's
+ SD card slot for expansion

Overall 5/10
Mio need to spend 2 hours putting menus into some 'intuative' order and another 2 hours adding this to a booklet to get 10/10 from meo :o)