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| Mio C520 4.3-Inch Widescreen Bluetooth Portable GPS Navigator | 
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| Brand: Mio
Category: CE
List Price: $399.95
Buy New: $245.95
You Save: $154.00 (39%)
New (25) Used (2)
Avg. Customer Rating:  120 reviews
Sales Rank: 1033
Media: Electronics
Autographed: No
Memorabilia: No
Native Resolution: 480 x 272
Display Size: 4.3
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 4.9 x 3.1 x 0.8
MPN: 526216470101
Model: 526216470101
UPC: 041881002431
EAN: 0041881002431
ASIN: B000MWNJPE
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 love it!!! August 8, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I love the fact that I have a split screen of the map and of the itinerary. The delay for re-routing is less compared to the other GPS I have bought. My only complaint would be that I cant change the type of view while Im driving, which I understand is for my safety, but that also means that my passneger is not allowed to change anything either until i come to a complete stop and that wastes a lot of time. other than that, I love this product and recommend it to all my friends
 Unbeatable performance for the price, the more I use it the more I love it... August 5, 2007
139 out of 140 found this review helpful
==== UPDATE October 2, 2007 ====
I bought a Nav-Mat Portable GPS Dash Mount for use in trips to California, where it is illegal to attach a GPS to your windshield. The Nav-Mat bean bag mount simply works great with the Mio C520 and is very stable. Check out the picture under customer images.
==== UPDATE August 21, 2007 ====
The following statement was in my original review and has been removed: "If you plan to use it in Europe, just Google "MioMap V3.3 Western Europe for Mio C220 - C320 - C520" and you should find some UK vendors who sell the SD card."
The fact is that although there are vendors in UK who sell the Europe map, the current Europe maps cannot be used in US/Canada models of C520 due to a license issue. Sorry if this caused confusion. Please read the forums at mionav dot com for updates on this issue.
==== UPDATE August 16, 2007 ====
I updated MioMap to the July 5, 2007 version, still v3.3, following the directions in MioNav dot com, which is linked to the Mio topics in the gpspassion dot com forums. (Search for the topic "Updates for miomap V3.3 are available" and you will find a link to download "MioMap V3 Updater for C320 and C520" from Mio's European website).
This update cures the stuttering problem reported in some earlier versions of MioMap. It also adds a Mute button on the map screen under the Bluetooth button. It does not update the maps or POI data, and leaves the History intact.
==== END UPDATES ====
OVERVIEW:
After doing tons of research to find a competent GPS navigation system under $350, I narrowed down my choice to two models - the Magellan Maestro 3140 and the Mio Digiwalker C520. I would have also considered the Garmin Nuvi 250, but it lacks both text-to-speech and Bluetooth capability which I wanted. If ease of use is most important, I would say the Magellan Maestro 3140, which is a huge improvement over its predecessor, the Maestro 3100, would have been an excellent choice. But since I was not gadget shy, the Mio Digiwalker C520, with its widescreen form factor and advanced capabilities was the unit for me.
The Mio C520 packs in US and Canadian maps with text-to-speech routing instructions, Bluetooth, an MP3 player, a video player, a picture viewer and a contact manager that synchronizes with MS Outlook. The installation is pretty painless. The suction cup holder, which is precision made in Germany, works very well and easily installs onto the windscreen of any car (contrary to what the previous reviewer claims). The Mio works right out of the box with instructions in the tiny manual. If you are willing read the full manual located in the supplied CDROM, and go through a very minor learning curve, you will find the user interface most satisfying and will profit from its awesome capabilities.
It has some cool features, like the ability to display map coordinates and altitude, and has the ability to automatically synchronize time and date with the satellite. It's signal pickup is lightening fast due to the state-of-the-art 20-channel SirfStarIII receiver. It actually picks up the satellite signal from inside my house. If you are further geek-inclined, visit the forums in gpspassion dot com - which show you how to unlock the GPS operating system (Windows CE 5.0) and install custom applications and utilities.
Now consider that the street price of the equivalent widescreen Garmin (the Nuvi 660) is $300 more than the Mio C520, and you can understand why the Mio tops MobilePlanet dot com's current popularity list. The Mio is perhaps among the best GPS' out there at any price!
EXPERIENCE:
On a recent trip to San Francisco with my wife, the Mio turned out to be a real trip saver. It listed our hotel in its point of interest (POI) database and got us to all our destinations without ever getting us lost. Needless to say, it saved us about a couple of hours each day on the trip, even though we were pretty familiar with the Bay Area. Not once did we have to stop for (or argue over) directions! The POI database listed all the major and minor points of interest, including museums, concert halls, gas stations, car rental agencies, seven-elevens, hospitals, etc. It also included hard to find, hole-in-the-wall restaurants. It has restaurants categorized by cuisine, which includes "Japanese", "Greek", "Indian" and so on.
While the routing capability is excellent, it is not 100% perfect. (None of the portable GPS models are perfect). While driving on 101 southbound to SFO airport, it asked us to "bear left on Bayshore freeway southbound" seconds before asking us to take the San Bruno exit to the airport on the right. While this was not a navigational glitch per se, it did have the potential for causing confusion. (Of course, I later understood that "bear left" meant the freeway bears left, not "get on the left lane", duh!). A couple of times it asked us to take left turns in downtown San Francisco that were not allowed. When we ignored it, it recalculated the routes in a matter of seconds, without forcing us to take U turns (which some other GPS models make you do).
Now lets put that in perspective and take, for example, a day trip to Monterey, Pebble Beach, Carmel and back to San Francisco (consisting of, say, 100 routing manoeuvers). On such a trip, the Mio would give confusing instructions perhaps two or three times in total, which meant it was perfect approximately 97% of the time. This is excellent performance in my book. I am perhaps looking at this with a more critical eye than warranted. The important thing is that Mio C520 recalculated the route the moment it realized we were off route, and always got us to our destination quickly.
By considerably reducing the planning chores, the Mio immensely improved the satisfaction of our holiday. We will never go on another trip without it!
TEXT TO SPEECH
The text-to-speech (TTS) feature, which causes the Mio to speak the street names, turns out to be valuable, especially when there are a lot of quick turns to make. The TTS ("Samantha") voice on the Mio C520 is perhaps a bit brusque but pleasant enough. There is a chime before each voice instruction, which alerts you to an upcoming manoeuver. (The TTS voice is in no way "HORRIBLE" or "VERY" chatty as described in the previous review. With all due respect to the previous reviewer, his review is pretty opinionated and unfair). The TTS voice did not stutter even once. The version of Mio Map on my unit is dated May 18, 2007. Note that some earlier versions are reported to have a TTS voice stuttering problem.
SCREEN:
The the 4.3-inch touch screen with 480x272-pixel resolution is vivid and sharp. (The screen is not washed out, as the previous reviewer claims). And it goes without saying you can easily adjust the brightness to your desired level. The touch-screen keyboard is in QUERTY format and has a predictive function, making it easy to enter an address quickly. The automatic night mode feature is pretty neat and wow inducing. It switches to night mode based on time of sunset for the current date, time zone, latitude and logitude!
NAVIGATION PERFORMANCE:
On the subject of navigation mapping data, the conventional wisdom is that in North America, Navteq data is more accurate than Tele Atlas - which the Mio uses. However, the recent buzz is that Tele Atlas has significantly narrowed the gap with Navteq, especially with its latest map versions released after the fall of 2006. A recent comparison of Navteq versus Tele Atlas in gpsreview dot net actually shows the Tele Atlas' mapping data to be slightly more accurate than Navteq's, while another study in gpsmagazine dot com has the results the other way around.
In my own tests, which included comparing the Mio C520's routing with online maps by Yahoo, Google and Mapquest, showed that none of the routing engines were perfect, with Google coming out perhaps slightly better than the others. To my delight, I found that the routes chosen by the Mio C520, which uses the latest Tele Atlas data, is pretty close to those chosen by Yahoo. Rest assured, the navigation performace of the Mio C520 is indeed excellent.
ROUTING FEATURES:
Typically you would enter an address or POI around the current city. Or you can change the destination city, state or country and enter an address or select a POI for that destination. The Mio also has the ability to route to a contact (an address you entered in the contact manager, under Tools->Contacts).
There is a peculiar way you need to enter North American addresses into the contact manager in order for the "Route to Contact" feature to work. For example, consider the address: 111 FIRST STREET, APT# 101, FREMONT, CA 94533. You have to enter 'CA, 94533' in the 'State:' field, 'FREMONT' in the 'City/Postcode:', 'FIRST STREET' in the 'Street:' field and 'Apt 101, 111' in the 'House number:' field. (Note that you need to enter the state and zip code separated by a comma in the 'State:' field). Once you enter the contact address as the Mio expects it, it creates the route to the contact address super fast (usually in less than 10 seconds).
The Mio has a decent job of position error filtering, which attempts to accurately estimate your car's position on the map. Even when driving at 70MPH on a freeway, the Mio is off by no more than 10 yards. It also estimates the car's speed within 2MPH of my car's odometer reading. When driving on regular streets at around 30MPH, the display of the car position is spot on. There are several split-screen views which you can cycle through, giving you the distance to the next manoeuver, the current time, the estimated time of arrival, etc. If you find the display too busy, you can turn off the panel, giving you a full widescreen routing map.
FINAL NOTES:
While I have not tried the MP3 or the video player, the Mio has no problem pairing with my Nokia E61 phone with Bluetooth for placing and receiving handsfree calls. There's a whole lot of features I am yet to try out. But I must say that this is a really powerful, well designed GPS Navigation system. There are no gimmicks. So, in conclusion, I highly recommend the Mio C520!!
PROS:
* Excellent routing engine
* Excellent, bright and vivid display
* Great, satisfying user interface. (After you get past the initial learning curve).
* Huge, well categorized POI database. (6.5 million points of interest!)
* Accurate display of current speed, map position and coordinates
* 20-channel SirfStarIII receiver which can receive a satellite fix from indoors
* QUERTY touch-screen keyboard
* Fast text entry by graying out keyboard characters as you type
* Text-to-Speech voice that does not stutter (MioMap v3.3, dated May 18, 2007)
* Automatic night mode based on current time zone, latitude and longitude
* Can be unlocked and tweaked (read the user forums in gpspassion dot com)
* Split screen display of itinerary, estimated time, arrival time, next move, current speed, etc.
* Track logs
* Ability to add via points
* Automatic and fast route recalculation
* Automatic time and date settings (through the satellite Time Sync feature).
* Graphically displays neat info like altitude, GPS signal strength, etc.
* Pedestrian mode
* 2D & 3D views with flyover and other modes
CONS:
* There is a slight learning curve to learn the advanced features
* Does not include carrying case. (I use a Sony Vaio power supply case for mine)
* Needs reboot after days of heavy use
* Does not tell you which side of the street your destination is on
* Delete History feature does not allow you to selectively delete an address
* "Route to contact" feature requires peculiar way of entering the contact address.
* Only one TTS voice
 Fantastic idea but lacking in implementation. July 20, 2007
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
I previously owned a Garmin Nuvi 350. In my eyes it was a fantastic GPS. The only downside to it was that it was VERY basic with basically zero advanced options. As well, the maps were pretty out of date (even the new 2008 released did not have some streets in my development which is almost about 11 years old).
Anyhow, so I decided to try out the C520 since I had purchased the C310x for my wife last year. My wife loves her c310x. In fact I just purchased the $25 map update from Mio for her. I liked the c310x but I wanted TTS. So that's the main reason I went out and got the c520; that and the fact that it already came preloaded with the new map release.
In all I'm happy enough with the c520. As I predicted, I love all of the advanced features. It's a bit of a shame however that they removed a number of advanced features that the c310x had. Cockpit mode is gone, ability to adjust the "information" displayed while routing is gone, etc... So to me, and in comparison with my Nuvi 350, there are A LOT of negatives. Here's my list of pros and cons for the c520:
Pros:
-loads of advanced options
-ability to avoid a certain road (very nice if you know there is going to be traffic on that road)
-bluetooth connection (works great with my 700p)
-maps seem pretty accurate and updated in my area (philly suburb)
Cons (as I said there are A LOT):
-HUGE downfall for me is that it does not turn on/off automatically with the ignition. you have to manually turn it on/off EVERY time. the "turn off in 10 min. if not used" does not work. It will stay on until the battery dies unless you hit the power button. VERY big inconvenience for me as I drive a lot. The Nuvi has a feature where it shuts down automatically after 30 seconds when it loses DC power.
-windshield mount is a joke. it needs to bend in about 3 more directions. my nuvi was mounted next to the driver's A-pillar. the Mio's mount only bends a few directions making it not fit there.
-screen is washed out compared to the nuvi's. colors are not vibrant and it is lacking contrast.
-map and text are VERY tiny making it hard to see (Nuvi's screen was smaller yet the text was double the size)
-there is only one voice for TTS and it is HORRIBLE. it's very robotic and metallic sounding. it's next to impossible to understand what the heck she is saying, not to mention the volume doesn't go very high so you have to make sure the radio is down and the AC is not cranked all the way up.
-it's VERY chatty. within the last mile before your turn it probably warns you about 6 times. turn in 1 mile, turn in 1/2 mile, turn in 1/4 mile, turn in 300 ft, turn right, etc...
-as another reviewer pointed out, it's satellite fix is not always correct. it has my house listed as being about 40 houses down from where it actually is. so when i go "home" it literally takes me to someone else's house 40 houses down, even though i put my number in.
-when on certain roads it does NOT give the exit number and sometimes it doesn't even tell you what direction to go. for example, driving on a highway you may come up to 295 north and 295 south. my Garmin would say "take exit 23, on right, to route 295 north". the c520 just says "bear right onto route 295". well 295 what? north? south? what exit number? do i REALLY have to look at the screen to try and figure this out while I'm trying to merge into 4 lanes of traffic? NOT a good design.
So in all, while there are A LOT of negatives, I am going to hold onto the c520 in HOPES that Mio releases some firmware updates that correct some of these issues and maybe add a few more TTS voices.
Best value for the money July 20, 2007
27 out of 27 found this review helpful
I have been using a GPS receiver with a laptop for a couple of years. Therefore I am a little picky on my first handheld GPS. I did a lot of research and almost decided to buy Garmin Nuvi 350 which has great reviews from hundreds of users, when I went to a local Fry's and saw Mio C520. I was overjoyed by my finding because Mio C520 delivered all functions and more I considered missing on Nuvi 350 at about the same price (online). A 4" LCD is also a big plus. Now I have been using it for about two weeks and my experience is mostly positive. Below is my review, plus some tips on how to use this great gadget. I will not repeat common features such as voice instruction, 3D map view, night display mode, etc.
The good:
1. Tons of convenient functions - almost everything you can ask for from a car GPS. This is the biggest advantage over the easy-but-over-simple Nuvi. To name a few,
- Mio C520 allows virtually unlimited user points of interests (POI) which can be organized in user defined folders.
- It supports virtually unlimited vias (comparing to only 1 for Nuvi).
- It tells you your coordinates (longitude, latitude, altitude) together with a nice satellite chart showing each satellite's signal strength; you can also enter your destination or POI location using coordinates without a street number. This truly blows Garmin Nuvi away! Many GPS beginners may think such coordinates have no use. I'll just give two examples: One application is for emergency - either roadside on a lonely highway not close to any exit or on a mountain trail, as long as your cell phone still has signal, you can call for help with your exact location. The other is for difficult POIs such as the McWay Fall near Big Sur - try finding its street address! My approach: find the tag on google earth (thanks to google community), read its coordinates, input them into your Mio, and you are set! In fact google earth + Mio can be a very powerful travel planning tool as you can see the surrounding of your destination, read reviews, or even watch guide videos, and input any interesting spots you find as a POI into Mio without worrying about the street address at all! In this way, I "discovered" Hollywood Bowl for my southern CA trip (hey, what's that funny round architecture?).
- The history function is great - if you lose track of your POI in the process of zooming/panning, just find it back in history. If you find on Mio some place you want to visit tomorrow but do not want to bother saving it as a custom POI, no problem. Just find it back tomorrow in the history.
- The POI database is great! I can even find my company name (a small start-up). The ability to change the "reference point" while searching a name is fabulous - you can search near your GPS location, near the cursor, near an address, near a history point, near a coordinate, etc. One tip for searching: computer prefers exact spelling. I once tried finding the closest Walmart and got shocked that none had been listed. It turned out that the correct spelling is Wal-mart. Mio does not allow you to input "-", but you can simply use a space as substitute.
- It can record your trips in track logs and replay - i.e. the popular "bread crumb". This would have been perfect for a casual hiker if the battery life was longer. In reality, you cannot afford having your Mio on all the time, but I imagine with the custom POI function you can still plan your trail ahead of time by storing waypoints or track your location by occasionally turning on Mio and saving the current GPS location as a POI. However, serious hikers should buy GPS designed for hiking and outdoor.
- Worried about losing your whole custom POI data in an accident? With one button you can backup your precious data onto an SD card, or restore it after such an accident.
2. A slim nice build with amazing visual presentation. The map looks very nice, even better than Nuvi. Details are just right. Want to see the big picture before following the GPS? There's an easy overview mode. The large 4" LCD provides enough space to display extra info if you like - either your current status (speed, time to arrive, etc.), or the list of turns ahead, or nearby gas and food, etc. I found these very helpful, but with one click you can also hide them and use the whole screen to show map.
3. Extra value by integrating bluetooth, media player, and expansion card slot. I didn't use bluetooth, but I can imagine if you have a compatible cell phone it'll be very convenient to find a restaurant and tap one button to call them directly from your Mio. Picture viewer is great with 4" LCD - I already used it to describe hard to find items to the assistant in an office store. A picture is more than a thousand words! If you have a digital camera with SD card, Mio would be a great photo preview tool so you don't have to take your laptop out. Your SD card shows as an external drive when you plug Mio into your computer, so you can even save a card reader. Not advertised, but you can play music while voice guidance is on, and when Mio wants to tell you an instruction it will mute the music temporarily just like Nuvi.
4. GPS receiver sensitivity is good - if initially locked ouside, I can still get signal indoor, sometimes even far away from any window. Re-locking satellites when resuming from stand-by mode is super fast, as long as you have not travelled far from the location where Mio has entered stand-by, and it is the same day when you turn Mio back on. Mio support says some programs are still running in stand-by, but my experience shows almost no power consumption in stand-by. So, you do not have to shut it completely down unless you are done for the day. The only disadvantage about stand-by is that the power button can easily be accidentally touched turning the unit on and wasting power.
5. GPS antenna is beautifully built in. In contrast, Nuvi users must flip the antenna out to enable the GPS, which is neither convenient nor robust.
6. The price is very good. Much much better value comparing to Nuvi 350/360/650/660.
The bad:
1. Battery life is tooooo short. With GPS initial locking + GPS guidance on + LCD backlight always on + full volume, a 30-min trip consumed about 40% of a fully charged battery. The advertised time is longer, but that may require you allow it to dim the LCD when no turn is coming up soon, etc. This is the main reason I don't give it a 5 star. Luckily Mio can be charged by cigarette lighter in the car, by 110V wall plug, or by a computer (cannot use it when plugged into a computer). So for a prepared trip it won't be a big problem. Just it's a pity it cannot be conveniently used for casual hiking.
2. Mio's instruction simply says "arrive at your destination" without saying if it's on the left or right. Other uses have pointed this out before. It's very inconvenient if you have to look left and right and either change lanes in the last minute or miss it. Luckily, most of the time you can see which side your destination is on by zooming into the map. Sometimes Mio will also guide you to make a U-turn to access a POI on your left. So it's not too bad.
3. Picture viewer and video player do not have very good resizing algorithm. So if your photo or video do not fit the LCD pixel size exactly, they will appear somewhat grainy. Don't misread - the LCD resolution is good; just there's not enough computing to make the resized photo or video still look nice. It's merely a little annoying, but OK for the price. If I have to pay $500 or more I would have expected iPhone experience. J
4. Audio output phone jack is smaller than 3.5mm, so normal stero headset does not plug in! This is bad design.
5. The unit does not come with a carrying case (Mio C520 sold in Europe includes one, but not in the US). I bought a very nice leather case on eBay for $25. It's a little annoying but OK.
6. No way to mute the master volume in one click.
7. The operation is a little complicated, and you need some learning time to master all the wonderful functions. Not for grandma/grandpa or technically-challenged users.
The wishlist:
1. Wish the European maps can be available to the US users soon. Hope by a reasonable price I can purchase future updates to US map, as well.
2. Wish the live traffic service can be available in the US soon.
3. Nuvi has a nice feature which can trigger corresponding audio playing when you move very close to a preset location. This has been used in creating audio tours. Nuvi also has other travel kits that're nice, such as dictionaries, travel guide, etc. Mio should add these as well - they are purely softwares and by adding these this wonderful gadget will be more attractive.
All-in-all, Mio C520 is the best value I found in handheld car GPS. Enjoy!!
The most for your money! July 16, 2007
40 out of 41 found this review helpful
I have had my Mio C520 for 3 weeks and driven over 3500 miles with it---from Rochester, NY to southern West Virginia to Topsail, North Carolina and back. I also used it on a trip from Rochester, NY to Washington, D.C. and back. This is my second GPS. My first was a Navman ICN 510.
I researched this purchase very carefully. I read practically every review that I could find of practically every GPS model currently on sale. I also spent at least a couple of hours "playing" with the various models in Circuit City.
This review is only of the GPS functions. I have no need of the bluetooth or multimedia functions and have not used them.
I am very satisfied with my purchase and highly recommend the C520. I believe it to be the best GPS for the money currently available.
I was amazed when I found that I could get a GPS signal inside of Circuit City (I was nowhere near a window). Acquisition of a signal was always relatively fast (I always shut it down to "standby" mode). Route recalculations were very fast. The unit never once locked up. (My Navman did all the time).
The Mio C520 easily beats all competing GPS models in terms of the amount of information readily available onscreen. Its split screen has Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan beat hands down. I particularly liked being able to view the map and the next 5 turns at the same time.
The navigation menus are intuitive, quick and very easy to use. I highly recommend reading the 9 page paper manual. It will get you up to speed very quickly. The predictive keyboard (a feature Magellan also has) is wonderful! The menus for various settings are not as intuitive or easy to use. Mio could clean these "settings" menus up some more. Speaking of settings, you can set this unit up almost anyway you want it. I particularly liked being able to change the "distance to go" settings to be in miles and feet rather than the default miles and yards.
The Points of Interest database is very extensive and seems to be up to date and accurate. (I did run into a problem on a stretch of NC 17 near Topsail, North Carolina where the locations of several POI were miles off). It is very easy to save your favorite destinations in customized folders in the My POI folder.
The maps seem to be relatively up to date and routing was almost always efficient and accurate, but it was not perfect. For example, some routing around Charleston, WV (in "fast" mode) was absurd. I found the same routing in "economical" mode to be spot on. The unit also will sometimes give you different directions on the return trip from a destination. Also, some information given was occasionally inaccurate. For instance, the unit would indicate a left turn toward Poca. The "turn left" part was accurate for where I wanted to go, but going to Poca would have required a right turn.
The text to speech feature was very nice and not available in any other wide screen model at this price. "Samantha" occasionally stuttered somewhat, but these occasions were infrequent and the stutter was slight. I never had any problem understanding what "she" was trying to tell me.
The screen is bright and clear and legible in the car in any light conditions. The screen is hard to view in bright sunlight when using it as a pedestrian. It would be nice if the fonts were a little larger. (I have since found out that it is easy to find "hacks" online that make it very easy to enlarge the fonts).
Also, it would have been nice if Mio had included the ability for it to tell you which side of the street your destination is on. My Navman, which also used TeleAtlas maps, had this feature, but it was sometimes inaccurate. One thing that my Navman did (which thankfully the Mio does not) was to instruct me to "return to the highway" every time it thought (inaccurately) that I had left it.
To sum up, I believe this to be the best GPS for the money. I am very pleased with it.
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