Mio 269 comments

andrewhockley · Occasional Visitor Joined: Mar 10, 2005 Posts: 6

Some novice comments on the Mio 269, having now been using one for short period. This is now my second unit - the first was DOA.

Overall I'd say the 269 is a bit of a disappointment.

Athough advertised as including the whole of Europe on the hard drive, this is being a bit generous, while strictly true. But, before using the navigator, you have to load a defined country map. With a particular country map loaded, you have detailed info available on that country, but only major routes information on other countries. I'm not sure how extensive this major routes information is. To switch between country maps, you have to reboot the navigator program.

In practice, this means that you can't actually define a route that goes across country borders, unless you need major route information only. This is a bit of a pain to be honest - I would expect it to load country data as needed on the route. I would also have expected to be able to specifiy destinations from the detailed individual country maps and navigate between these points. As it is, you have to hope that you know one end of the journey well enough to only need major route info at that end. If you save destinations you've ID'd from the detailed maps as named personal destinations, then it will let you enter them as route points, but will then decline to navigate to them unless they are on the map it has loaded.

Doesn't seem to do UK postcodes - though its great with German ones

Battery life is very low indeed - maybe half an hour or so. I don't think it would be very practical to use it away from a power source.

Picks up satellites very well, even indoors - on my dashboard 6 satellites without fail, even without the external aerial

When it's got the right country map loaded, I've found it to be generally pretty accurate and timely in giving instructions when driving. It did try to get me to turn left into an unbroken terrace of houses last week.

User interface is fairly poor - its usable but hard work at times. I don't get the feeling its had much user testing. If you edit a saved journey for example, you have to type the whole journey name in again before saving it - I would have expected it to default to the name I gave it, rather than a blank field.

Hope this helps - I don't have much to compare it with, but suspect the Tom Tom GO with the extra maps might be a better solution.

NikosR · Occasional Visitor Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 1

I fully agree with your comments, I also have mio 269 for a week and I am very disappointed. Often it says turn left and the map shows right! , the route indicated is not always the shortest, or quickest and the European coverage argument, is rather misleading. The syncro software is primitive, and the autonomy disappointing. I am really looking forward to a software upgrade. I guess for the money I paid, I should expect some improvement from the manufacturer.

mioman · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 11, 2005 Posts: 3

hi- thought i would add my comments about mio 269 which i have had for 4 weeks- never having any device like this before i have nothing to compare it with- after several false starts and lots of phone calls to mio i am slowly getting to grips with it and its limitations - battery life with me is 1 hr max- when i first had it i had thought of travelling thoughout europe with my caravan from my home in spain and it would pick out any campsites anywhere with the specified radius of course not so it would seem i have to load it with each country as i cross the border and then specify a town to find out whats in that area which in some ways defeats the whole object of me having it - one of the problems for me is that so many addresses in europe have an address something like Ctra. Nacional 340, Km 159. 29680 Estepona - how do i cope with that? - the other thing i would really like is to be able to run the soft on a PC to get to know it better - i tend to use its directions as a guide only because it seems to make so many mistakes such as when i am at home telling me i am in the next street - lastly i would love to know if this example is the general norm of things in satnav devices or if there are ones available that are all singing and dancing - jeff jones

mioman · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 11, 2005 Posts: 3

hi- thought i would add my comments about mio 269 which i have had for 4 weeks- never having any device like this before i have nothing to compare it with- after several false starts and lots of phone calls to mio i am slowly getting to grips with it and its limitations - battery life with me is 1 hr max- when i first had it i had thought of travelling thoughout europe with my caravan from my home in spain and it would pick out any campsites anywhere with the specified radius of course not so it would seem i have to load it with each country as i cross the border and then specify a town to find out whats in that area which in some ways defeats the whole object of me having it - one of the problems for me is that so many addresses in europe have an address something like Ctra. Nacional 340, Km 159. 29680 Estepona - how do i cope with that? - the other thing i would really like is to be able to run the soft on a PC to get to know it better - i tend to use its directions as a guide only because it seems to make so many mistakes such as when i am at home telling me i am in the next street - lastly i would love to know if this example is the general norm of things in satnav devices or if there are ones available that are all singing and dancing - jeff jones

bopinbrianita · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 22, 2005 Posts: 4

Hi

Agree with all the comments on the 269 it drove me up the wall giving out strange directions which often conflict with what it shows on the screen. Also the inability to load POI's was a bit disapointing.
Overall a nice looking bit of kit with lots of excellent standard features but I do think the battery life and poor navigation let it down a bit.
In the end I took it back and exchanged for a Navman510, this unit doesnt have all the features of the mitac but it is good at navigating and the ability to load up the safety camera POI data is a bonus!!

Purplemadboy · Occasional Visitor Joined: May 11, 2005 Posts: 1

Hi All
I have had my MIO 269 for about 6 weeks,as you all say its more of a guide rather than an exact sience,bit of a dissy.some roads are wrongly named (major roads)so this does not boad well when I go to europe and depend on this thing!
Tryed to download some tunes into it but software said no mmc card was in the machine(there was) has anybody managed to get it to work?

ps
only use the first two letters and first number of a uk post code

bootruss · Regular Visitor Joined: Feb 17, 2005 Posts: 60

..granted but E.S.L mapping on a 2gig hard drive for under 400 quid!

..you getz what youz pays for!

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