Today, Mio unveiled four new GPS: Mio Moov 200, 210, 300 and 310, for a MRSP of $179.95, $199.95, $229.95 and $249.95 respectively. The 200 and 210 have a 3.5 TFT Anti-Glare Touch Screen (320 x 240) and the 300 and the 310 have a 4.3″ TFT Anti-Glare Touch Screen (480 x 272). All the units come with the text-to-speech functionality, the 210 and the 310 include a one year free Traffic Messaging Channel (TMC) subscription subscription that gives real-time traffic updates. That’s a good list of features for a relatively low price point.
This time, Mio has decided to get rid of all the non-navigation features that are usually present in their devices like MP3 player, video playback or photo browsing. We think this is a good news, since the majority of users do not use their GPS for entertainment – they all have a phone for that.
We tested the Mio Moov 310: it has a sleek and neutral look that fit most car interiors; I personally prefer the look of the Sony Nav U, but at that price, it is ok. The mount is small and discreet, but does not stick on all dashboard materials; I had to fix it on top of the instrument cluster since it would not stick on the dashboard texture (see photos). If you buy one, make sure that the texture of your dashboard is compatible with the mount adhesive.
The GPS starts right away on the map view. There is no intermediate screen where users have the choice of using other features like the MP3 Player or get to the settings (Mio C310). The user interface is easier to use than the previous Mio devices, everything is more accessible directly from the map, and browsing the features is more intuitive. Entering an address is fast: the GPS will guess the city or street name upon the entry of a few letters. The menu icon is not obvious to recognize as a menu button (the word “Menu” would have been better), but the map colors look better.
The breaking news: for the first time Mio developed the software in-house, thanks to the recent Navman acquisition. We were big fans of the previous navigation software, developed by a third party team with a video game background because the map animation was super fast and fluid. The new map animation is not as fast but it is fairly ok. However, the zoom is definitely slower and not fluid at all in comparison to the C310.
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