mio 169 GPS

Graeme,

The Mio 168 is a pocket PC device with an inbuilt GPS, it comes with a variety of street software such as destinator etc.
Being pocket PC you can load any software you want which is written for Windows CE.
I run SmartST, Destinator, GPSGate and OziexplorerCE on it.

With Oziexplorer CE you can load any map, most useful for that size screen is the Natmap 250K which is 750MB in size.

I run a 2 gig SD card but you can also fit it all in a 1 gig card.

Will

One of the January computer mags (PC User or PC Authority I think) has a comprehensive review of these units and the Mio 169 (no it's not a typo it is one-six-nine) came out on top.

To use alternative maps you would need to load OziExplorerCE (or a similar program like Fugawi, Memory Map etc). To get the most out of these (including calibrating new maps etc) you also need to be using the full version on a desktop or laptop.

The Mio itself is a self contrained unit. Internal GPS in a PDA. You will need a mount (I use a windscreen mount as I broke the air vent in my Paj using an air vent mount) and a charging cable. The manufacturers always seem to claim 8-10 hours running time but my experience with maps is that the CPU has to work fairly hard and you want the screen light fairly bright and on all the time and the GPS _Affordable_Storage_Drawers.aspx extra current and, of course, you want it to be charged if you take it out of the vehicle for a walk.

The one drawback with the all in one units is that many of them don't have a connector for an external GPS antenna so it needs to be mounted fairly high as the metal of your car will block the GPS reception. Even on the windscreen my GPS (which slides into the Compact flash slot on my PDA) gets much better reception with the external antenna on the roof. And if it sits on the seat it occasionally drops out of lock.

Peter

Hi Graeme,
this could be of interest
grays
cheers

Hi Graeme, friend of mine has the Mio 169 unit and it's pretty cool! I am interested in getting one as well but wasn't sure about map availability - you saved me posting! One thing I was really impressed with was the screen clarity and overall finish of the unit - also came with all the extras as part of a kit.

Dekard

Hey Deckard,

I'm particularly interested in the Mio 169 also. It seems to meet the need to have street guidance and an ability to run OziExplorer in the one unit. Plus I can salary sacrifice it, effectively paying $450.00

Do you know, or could you ask your friend whether the device can record the waypoints for a track file as you go? And whether you can upload track files/waypoints to the device.

Thanks in advance.