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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: $209.65
You Save: $190.30 (48%)
New (10) from $209.65
Avg. Customer Rating:  128 reviews
Sales Rank: 2486
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Tracks: Unknown
Native Resolution: 480 x 272
Display Size: 4.3
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 4.9 x 3.1 x 0.8
MPN: 526216470101
Model: 526216470101
UPC: 841881002437
EAN: 0841881002437
ASIN: B000MWNJPE
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Mio C520 was great on a 4,500 mid-cross country trip ! although not perfect. July 4, 2007
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
My wife and I purchased a mio C520 GPS for a trip the next day from St. Louis, MO to Denver, CO thru Estes Park, down to Colorado Springs, CO , over to San Diego, CA up to San Francisco, CA via US highway 1 then to Napa Valley, CA then to the Grand Canyon and back the southern route thru AZ, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and St. Louis.
The mio C520 GPS did a great job, although not perfect. I'd give it a 95% job. From street address to street address it did 100% job of getting you there. A few times it plotted a zig-zag route on a three mile strech to a restraunt that i would have preferred to go a little longer and slower on a straight away, but i guess it was shorter.
What is the great feature is knowing throught the trip how far away gas stations are as they can be sparse in the desert and remote parts of the trip. the Mio also found some great restraunts just a few miles (4) off the interstate. It also has the phone number and address of the points of interest in addition to showing it on a map. It even had a sandwich shop overlooking the pacific on Highway 1. Even though the last update to POI was April 2007, some restraunts had closed, we only has two we found. which i can't fault the mio on. Hotels listings were great as my wife and I would drive until we felt like calling it a night.
We could use the mio to gauge distances of further out hotels. The main screen tells you if the gas stations are ahead of you, behind you or to the side of your current location, very nice. On the logding listing, the mio tells you the distance but not the direction. So you have to know the citites you have passed and what's ahead. There were a lot of hotels and restraunts in the Grand Canyon that the mio did not even list which was surprising. Overall it did a great job finding places if you want more than fast food off the highway. The mio did list just abount every small street that we encountered which was especially helpful since many did not have street signs where we turned.
The graphics and map with 3-D are cool, it makes it seem as if you are driving a futuristic "Jetson's " car or spacecraft.
You can adjust the brightness down at nighttime, it can do it automatically too. The display was always readable even in the sun. The battery did not seem to last long (a few hours) so make sure you use the included auto adapter. It also comes with an a/c plug and usb cable.
The English (UK) quite realistic British accented voice Thomas made the trip quite enjoyable with his style and pronnunciation to add a touch of elegance. Althought Thomas only give distances for turning as in turn right in 1/4 of a mile. You have to look at the screen for the street name. Announcing street names (Called text-to-speech) is only available in Englishg (US) Samatha voice.
The English (US) voice samamtha gives street names although her voice is somewhat robotic, I guess I was expecting a southern belle voice after the great job mio did with Thomas' voice.
A solo driver can follow the navagation directions, however you must for safety have the passenger use the other features aside from gas stations distances which can be chosen as an option to display on the split screen.
Other split screen are mileage remaining on trip and distance to next turn.
Several other languages are also included. I did not use any of the bluetooth capabilities.
I would recommend the mio C520 strongly.
 Bang for the buck, feature packed gps unit.... a hidden little gem! July 1, 2007
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
After doing much research, I had narrowed down my selections and went with the Mio C520. It features a 4.3" widescreen display, text to speech, bluetooth, plays mp3 and movie files -- all at a great price. The unit has a beautiful charcoal grey casing and is the better looking ones in the market. Very sleek and simple looking. Most importantly, the Mio C520 had provided accurate directions and great POI (over 6 million) -- definitely had saved me on my recent family roadtrip.
The interface is pretty easy to follow and simple to use. For me, receiving the Mio C520 on the first day, I had started using it without reading the manual. For the most part, it is pretty straightforward in operating it. From reading about other competing units, the display can be difficult to see during daylight. Not the Mio C520. The widescreen display is bright and is great in daylight and in the evenings. There are color choices to accomodate your taste. Love it!
Some user had complained about confusing routing / directions. To make the routing less confusing, choose the 'Economical' method as it makes it less complicated. I had experiemented with the other methods and it had made my wife and I begin scratching our heads. The one big issue I had with this is its bluetooth function. Those who have Treos or other pda phones you may have to prepare for some disappointment. I called Mio tech support and had requested if they can provide a firmware update to include more compatible bluetooth phones. If you can overlook this, this is a great GPS unit, hands down. Overall, I am pretty happy with my choice and would recommend this to others.
Pros:
4.3" widescreen display
Text to speech
Plays mp3 and movie files
Accurate routing
Sleek looking housing
Great price
Cons:
Bluetooth.. limited capability
Accessores.. limited and hard to find
Excellent value June 29, 2007
42 out of 42 found this review helpful
The Mio C520 is my first standalone GPS. I've used others on laptops, cell phones, PDAs and the like, but this is the first dedicated unit I've tried.
I was sorely tempted by the Garmin models, but figured that I really didn't need a more expensive unit for my relatively limited needs, knowing that I could return it to Amazon if it wasn't suitable.
I don't think I'll be returning the Mio C520.
Physically, it's a very attractive unit, about 3 by 5 inches and perhaps a half-inch thick. It slips easily into a shirt pocket. (Mio, by the way, does not provide any kind of case or protecetive sleeve. I would strongly urge you acquire a screen protector immediately and an inexpensive belt case.) This portability is a major plus because the 6 million item POI (Points Of Interest) library is truly blowaway caliber. If you've ever been a stranger in a city, particularly with a sign restriction, finding a place to eat can be a major hassle - not with this little hummer. Just about any category of goods, services and conveniences are represented. Some of the listings can be strange, such as the inclusion of McDonald's under Mexican restaurants. But on the whole, the POI catalog is a major selling point for the C520.
The 4.3 inch display is excellent. Like almost all devices, it is difficult to read in direct bright sunlight, but performs quite well in all other situations. The information display, if you choose to use it, is excellent.
Even indoors, I had no trouble getting quick satellite fixes. As I write this, I am sitting indoors about ten feet from the windows and have solid fixes on six satellites. Outdoors in obstruction free areas, there is no problem.
Route calculation so far has proven to be quite good. I took it out for a test today as a passenger, while the driver took a very, very circuitous route to our destination, ignoring the unit's suggestion. Recalculation was acceptably fast. The C520, by the way, doesn't as many mapping programs do think that a U-turn is the first remedy and sometimes only remedy.
All the menus are accessible. I really have no complaints about about the hierarchy.
The video, photo, audio and Bluetooth functions seem to work okay, though I haven't spent a great deal of time with them.
Overall, I am very pleased with the C520. I am looking forward to being able to slip it into my shirt pocket on my next out-of-town trip and being to depend on it as a handy and accurate guide.
Jerry
Nice after initial setup June 16, 2007
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
This GPS is very nice after setting it up to your own preferences. Unfortunately some of the controls are hard to find, but once you spend some time with the manual and poke around a bit it's OK.
I found that setting the route control to "economy" helped a great deal around my complicated neighborhood.
The newer TeleAtlas seem to be better than the previous. The huge number of POIs is great, and was a big selling point for me.
The only thing I could ask for was a simpler interface for user adjustments. Deleting a route, sound level and other obvious controls should be at the uppermost level. The zoom in and out icons, street pronunciations and a few other major things are off by default.
Once it's all set up it is quite nice, especially for the price.
Many Features! June 7, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
As being a previous owner of the Mio 310x, I thought an upgrade to the 4 inch model would be nice to try. Well I was right, this just adds to my excitement of the Mio brand and format. Overall, I just love this GPS unit. My favorite part of the C520 is the voice guidence, same voices from the C310x but it includes one more... Text-To-Speach, a womans voice, which gives it the ability to be more precise, telling you road names(not always perfect pronounciation but works well) as well the distance. 3D mapping makes it sweeter, as you get closer to you next turn or change it zooms closer in, when you turn, it zooms back out and arrows point your direction out, 2D is a option too. The unit can display your distance, speed, time, and time to arrive at your destination. Since it has a larger screen, it will display either your speed and time or you can have it give you the next four Points of Interest, like gas stations and points a arrow compass from your current location to them. Night mode is a great feature, it turns the screen dark black, roads blue and guide in red, very cool.
This unit also has 2GB of memory built in as well a SD card slot, so you can add and play videos, music or load pictures to view, Calculator and Currency exchange tool. Bluetooth included to, havent tried since I dont have it on my current cellphone.
My only negitive part of the unit, same with the C310x, is if you turn it off at night and go back to it in the morning, it can take 30secs to a minute to link back up to the Satallites, not a huge issue but enough to point out.
Maps very accurate in my area, upgrade from the C310x, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a GPS.
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