C710 problems?

[Retty]

I've just used a Mio C710 on a 700 mile or so round journey and I have to say, despite some nice points, I'm quite disappointed by it's journey performance. The hardware seems to be good (good processor speed, good bluetooth and so on) but the software is odd and troublesome to say the least.

Can anyone answer the following questions (especially the first 2) - any help would be appreciated. Despite reading the manual I can't work out where I'm going wrong:

1) I couldn't force the C710 to display Points of Interest icons during the journey. I made sure that all the relevant Points of Interest selections were turned on from the "Manage POI" menu. Occasionally, *very* occasionally, a petrol pump icon would appear - about 4 or 5 on a 700 mile urban and rural journey! With other sat nav units I've seen icons appearing by the side of the road during a journey (including icons for road cafes, garages and so on). I couldn't get this to work with the C710 despite making sure that the settings were correct. The C710 had address details for the relevant Points of Interest - I could see them in the text list but I couldn't get the details to pop up as icons during the journey.

2) I set speed camera audible alerts to "simple". But on only 5 occasions did the C710 alert me to a pending camera with a turkey like warbling sound (on 2 occasions the camera was facing the wrong way and on one occasion there was no camera). Many, many camera icons were displayed but on only 5 occasions did I get an audible warning (unless I set the audible warning to detailed mode which was a nuisance). Is there a known problem whereby the C710 doesn't provide a "simple" audible alert to cameras?

3) The voice instructions could frequently be odd or misleading or simply incorrect: a left bend in the road would often be voiced as left "turn" instruction especially but not always where the bend amounted to a change in the road name; left turns would sometimes be voiced as "bear left". I found that I was sometimes told to take a 2nd left turn when the first left turn was a narrow pedestrian alley way (one of which, in Exeter, was a 3 foot entry point in to someone's private garden courtyard!) The visual map representations were by and large very good (not very detailed though) but the voice didn't seem to match a commonsense reading of what the map was saying.

4) The C710 (Miomap 3.11) crashed on 3 occasions requiring a reset. On all occasions the crash happened in the same geographical location (give or take 20 feet). It was a junction that wasn't especially complex - just lights:

http://tinyurl.com/yf8bot

I think the hardware is good but the software - especially the voice instructions - seems to be a bit flaky.

Also, is there anyway of turning the text entry screen keyboard in to a QWERTY keyboard?

[GPSBear]

The simple speed alert only warbles if you are *over* what it thinks is the camera's speed setting. I find a quick glance at the map when it says anything usually clarifies the turn. Assuming it is safe to do so of course.
_________________
Mio C710 on MioMap 3.3

[Retty]

[Sallyann]

[Retty]

[ernest_mio]

If I recall correctly - the displaying of POI information, othe rthan the tiny blue dot, is controlled by an option within one of the config files. This file has an entry for each POI type and the "map distance" at which it will be displayed. One of the hack forums talked about this and suggested a fix. However, I tried it and the Mio crashed and I had to reload from DVD again - not tried it since.

can't recall which Hack forum it was - but it was on this site.

[ernest_mio]

[Retty]

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