REVIEW COMMENTS: Evesham's Mitac Mio 168 CoPilot Bundle

Dave

Amongst the GPS community Mitac's Mio 168 has been one of the most anticipated handhelds this year and with good reason. The Mio 168 is the first PocketPC to contain a built-in GPS receiver and has already appeared in other world markets. It's first showing here in the UK is courtesy of Evesham Technology who has chosen ALK's excellent CoPilot Live for their offering.

Evesham Technology serves both business and personal user markets and whilst this is their first foray into the handheld market they are a well known and respected PC manufacturer.

Read the full review here
http://www.pocketgpsworld.com/mitacmio168.php

jlw

I tryd this mio for a while back. Just a short time inside my car. Workd good. But lost satelites alot of times. Where my fortuna have like 4-5 sats. But its a differ price class. Smile

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mrwhitelabel · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jun 14, 2004 Posts: 26

igot one of these but from globalpositioningsystems packaged with TomTom3. had to install the software mysel.

tested it out on a run from birmingham to briustol yesterday and founf that the integrated gps is not goodenough to run from and rarely found enough staelites to work so i always had to have the external car antena connected.
while not a major problem, it sort of eliminates the usp of the prodcut when the integrated gps isnt all that.
Also locked up on the motorway with directions which meant i had to do a soft reset (not while driving i might add but at a service station)

time will tell what my full opinions of this are but for now good Smile

Dave · Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 7:50 pm Post subject:

It sounds like you both have UV coated windscreens, especially JLW, if you're only getting 4-5 sats as you should be getting around 7-9 with the fortuna.

If you've got a UV coated windscreen this will dampen signals, using a BT GPS will get around this as you can move it closer to the windscreen to the base/corner of the windscreen and pickup signal as the UV coatings don't always go to the edges.

jlw · Posted: Thu Jun 17, 2004 9:08 pm Post subject:

Darren · Posted: Fri Jun 18, 2004 7:04 am Post subject:

n16ens · Occasional Visitor Joined: Nov 07, 2004 Posts: 18

I've just ordered my Mio 168, but I never thought I might have to use the external ariel when in the car - doh! I have a new Audi A4, does anyone know if I will have to use the external ariel to get a good signal?

Cheers

UKHABU · Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:02 pm Post subject:

I have had a Navman Pin(Mio 168) for about 2 months now and I can say that most of the time it aquires sattelites and keeps the lock fairly well - when lock is lost it seems to re-aquire quickly.

It isn't so good on the initial cold start - it can take anything from 1 - 4 minutes.
I use mine in a Land Rover Discovery and a Alfa GTV using the supplied Navman windscreen sucker mount with no problems getting and 95% of the time maintaing GPS lock.

I used it to go thru London yesterday - A11/M11/A406/A13/A1261 into Canary Wharf/Docklands and it was brilliant - maintained it's lock even thru the tall "canyons" of buildings.

One problem I did notice with the Smart St V2 software :
Due to the (relatively) imprecise position given by a GPSr (10-15 meters)The software "adjusts" the current-position pointer to be always on the nearest road - when in places like London where you have roads very close to each other or indeed slightly above/below from the road you are actually travelling on the pointer can "jump" onto another road.

It was interesting going around Westferry Road Circus near Canary Wharf which is a strange "double" roundabout - voice instructions said "take next left" and when I did and the distance between the two circles physically increased and the pointer then jumped onto the correct road!

I have also twice had problems near airports - both Stansted and Gatwick - I am assuming somehow a radar (or other emitter) is either blanketing the GPS signal or interfering with the receiver because the position goes haywire!
pecial window coatings aside you will have no problem using the Mio 168 in an Audio A4
S
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hairycornflake · Occasional Visitor Joined: Dec 17, 2004 Posts: 5

i bought my mio 168 around 3 months ago with tom tom navigator 3 and have used it everyplace from walking in the hills to going from fife in scotland to tonbridge in kent and have found this to be a great system i had a acer system with bluetooth but it was not good to go out walking with

ive convinced a few taxi drivers in my home town to buy and use this system and all have great reports with it

but there is one draw back and this is software based why cant you get software like tom tom or the others where a firm like taxis or others can buy just one lot of software and install it on the fleet this is my only gripe

as for the mio you get a great system for the price without all the wires and stuff

also i would like to see a cradle for home or office use as i hate having wires running around my desk

so if anyone knows where i can get one apart from the one that comes with the aldi package please let me know

my next thing is to purchase copilot live

as ive used this with all the other software ie navigator,mio maps, falk

and out them so far tom tom is the best :D

GORDON

dibble · Posted: Sun Dec 19, 2004 7:40 pm Post subject: Mio 168

I have a Moi 168 with checkpoint 3.2 and tt3. I have to say that the system is working very well. It takes different amounts of time to get a sat lock between 50 secs to 3 mins but once it has a lock I usually get around 6-9 sats all the time.

Just one thing - I have just read the review on the 168 - on there it has a GPS trickle charge system but on mine it's not there. It looks like it would be quite helpful so does anyone know how to get this please.

Thanks

Dibs
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DavidW · Posted: Mon Dec 20, 2004 5:50 pm Post subject:

It sounds like you're talking about the SiRF trickle mode options that allow you to save power by reducing the performance of the GPS receiver.

Some software may allow you to select these modes, but they're of no value for in-car navigation systems like TomTom 3 (especially as you probably have external power available in car). For in-car navigation you want the best quality fix; not one compromised by power saving - as happens in the more aggressive 'trickle mode' optoins.

David

dibble · Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 12:06 am Post subject:

A fair comment and good advice David. I need to do a test to see how long the battery will last but as you say I do have external power so I guess it's not too much of a problem.

I am unsure of the battery type in the Mio and I don't want the battery to get a memory because I charge it too often. Most modern batteries are not prone to this but I like to make sure! Smile

Thanks

Dibs
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DavidW · Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2004 4:18 pm Post subject:

On most Pocket PCs, the battery type is visible in the Power settings - Start Menu, Settings, System tab, Power. I'd be very surprised if it wasn't Li-Ion or Li-Polymer; I've not come across a Pocket PC that isn't using one of these battery types for its main battery for years.

"Backup" batteries (those that provide a few minutes of power to allow you to swap the main battery) are often Ni-MH, but that's not really anything to worry about.

Li-Ion batteries like being topped up - you do them far less damage if you keep topping them up than if you cycle them hard. My September 2002 iPAQ h3970, which was, until a couple of months ago, in daily use hasn't suffered any appreciable loss of battery life - it has a non-replaceable Li-Polymer (from memory) main battery. Li-Polymer and Li-Ion are very similar.

By the time that battery life issues are significant for a PDA, there's usually DIY battery change kits available - that's certainly the case now for the various series of iPAQs with 3000 model numbers. It's usually no more difficult than taking apart the main unit following provided insturctions, unplugging the old battery pack, plugging in a new battery pack and giving it a full charge.

David

dibble · Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2004 10:03 pm Post subject: mio 168

Thanks for your help as always David - I appreciate your time.

Happy Christmas!

Dibs
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alnero · Occasional Visitor Joined: Jan 26, 2005 Posts: 6

I bought a Mitac mio 168 with ttn3 and preloaded with full 7 digit postcode access. For £300.00 it is worth every penny. A lot of people moan about the little niggles in the system but for £300, IT IS BRILLIANT. I could moan about that driving to Stoke pogues( north of Slough) the TTN3 software tried to direct me to an emergency only, slip road off the M4 but for £300 it is fantastic !!. I normally have to refer to 20 county maps whilst driving at the same time. Also, I don't know this, it has probably saved me from, at the very least, serious injury.

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