Entered CNET Catalog: 05/24/2006
SKU: 0841881001614
Manufacturer: MiTAC Industrial Corp.
Manufacturer description
The Mio C710 combines the latest satellite navigation technology with a wide range of extras in an elegant, eye-catching body. Everything about the state-of-the-art Mio C710 says quality from the word go, from the built-in maps to user-friendly design. Whether you travel frequently in one country or throughout Europe, the C710 is a new way forward.Product summary
The good: The ultraportable Mio C710 can navigate, give you traffic updates, connect to a Bluetooth phone for hands-free calls, and play music and video. Its accurate receiver did a good job of tracking our location.
The bad: The Mio C710 lacks text-to-speech functionality and its list of compatible Bluetooth phones is limited. Also, the C710's screen was barely readable in sunlight and the device was sometimes sluggish when switching between apps.
The bottom line: The Mio C710 offers solid navigation and entertainment features in one sleek package, but its Bluetooth capabilities and screen need some work.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 08/01/2006
Just four rubberized buttons are on the right spine: power on/off, main menu, volume up, and volume down. You can access the rest of the C710's functions via the 3.5-inch, 65,000-color display. The touch screen is responsive, and text and images are clear and sharp. In addition, the menu icons are large and easy to understand. But it's not a complete lovefest, as we had a couple of complaints. First, the C710 is barely readable in sunlight. We had a really hard time viewing maps as we drove around on a sunny day in San Francisco, even after we adjusted the angle of the device. Viewing videos and pictures outdoors in a park was also abysmal. Our second gripe was that the virtual keyboard was on the cramped side. We had to pay particular attention as were inputting addresses; still, we had numerous mistakes. Users with larger digits will definitely want to test this feature out before committing to the purchase.
There's an SD/MMC card expansion slot on the top of the Mio C710 for carrying extra media, such as music and video. On the bottom of the device, you'll find a mini USB port, a reset hole, and a 3.5mm headphone jack (accepts Walkman-style headphones) that also doubles as the traffic antenna jack. There are two small LEDs to the upper left of the screen; the first illuminates orange while the battery charges and the bottom one blinks blue when Bluetooth is ready for use. Finally, the speaker is located on the back along with a port for attaching an external antenna for better satellite reception.
Mio packages the C710 with all the necessary accessories to get you started. Aside from the aforementioned protective case, you get a windshield mount, a car charger, an AC adapter, a USB cable, a TMC (Traffic Message Channel) antenna, an application CD, and a map DVD. The Mio C710 uses a 20 SiRFstarIII, WAAS-enabled GPS receiver and comes with maps of North America preloaded on the device's 2GB of ROM, so you don't have to deal with any time-consuming map transfers from your PC and it's ready to go right out of the box. You get the standard text- and voice-guided turn-by-turn directions. The C710 does not, however, feature text-to-speech functionality, which speaks actual street names; instead, you'll get generic directions, such as "Turn left in 100 feet." The Settings menu allows you to customize the C710 to your liking. You can choose to get directions by the quickest or shortest route, in English, Spanish, or French, or enable/disable various voice prompts, such as speed and unreliable GPS connection warnings. You can also tell the C710 to avoid certain roads, but interestingly, only toll roads are included as part of the default list, not highways. You can, however, manually input them. Maps are presented in 2D or 3D mode, and a Night Mode changes the color scheme of the maps for better nighttime viewing.
For route creation, you can enter a specific address, an intersection, or select a destination from your My Favorites list. The C710 also saves your recently visited locations, so you can choose from that list as well. If you need to make a pit stop during your trip, the unit has a 5 million points-of-interest (POI) database with entries for main attractions, such as gas stations, restaurants by type, shopping centers, and lodging, down to specialized interests, such as casinos, golf courses, and nightlife.
Not only will the Mio C710's navigation features save you time on the road, so will its traffic services. With the integrated TMC receiver, the device receives real-time traffic data from Clear Channel's Total Traffic Network. You can have the C710 automatically avoid congested areas or instruct it to ask you first before creating a new route. With the purchase of the C710, you get three months of complementary service; afterward, you'll pay an annual subscription fee of $75. Also, check here to make sure the service is available in your area.
The Mio C710 has integrated Bluetooth, so you can connect it with your Bluetooth-enabled cell phone to make hands-free calls. Once paired, you can place and receive calls, but you can't wirelessly transfer contacts from your phone to the C710. It does, however, sync with Microsoft Outlook, so you can use the included USB cable to transfer your contacts from your PC to the device. We ran into a problem, however, when trying to test this feature. The list of compatible phones is quite small at the moment. For example, only one Motorola handset and two Samsung phones are supported (you can see the full but brief list here). This shortcoming may be a deterrent for those looking for a portable nav system with Bluetooth capabilities, so we hope Mio has plans to expand this list in the future.
The C710 has a built-in DivX media player that supports MP3 files and includes some advanced features, such as an equalizer and playlist creation. However, the player's interface isn't very intuitive. Aside from the main controls (track forward and back, play, stop, and volume up and down), none of the other controls are labeled, so you just have to tap on the icon to see what happens. There is a help section (the question mark icon) that will identify what each icon does, but the list is quite large, so it alone can be overwhelming. The video player is more straightforward, with fewer controls, and supports MPEG-4 format. Finally, you can view JPEG images with the photo viewer and play them in a slide show, but you can't add music to the playground. Mio also throws in a calculator for good measure. We tested the Mio C710 in the San Francisco area and overall, performance was good. From a cold start, the C710 took about 3 minutes to acquire a 3D fix (four satellites locked in), but subsequent starts were much faster. As is the case with most portable nav systems, we encountered some problems as we drove through the financial district of the city where tall buildings prevent a clear view of the sky. That said, the device did a good job of tracking our location, and driving directions were accurate. We purposefully took a couple of wrong turns, and the C710 was able to get us back on track with its automatic rerouting.
The C710's media player was surprisingly decent. Music playback sounded quite good through the device's speakers, although you'll want to remember not to lay the speaker face down. We plugged in a pair of Shure E3c's, and audio quality was even better. Unfortunately, we weren't as enthralled with the video quality. Pictures were often blurry and pixelated; they're watchable but certainly not up to the standard of a stand-alone PVP. As we've experienced with some other GPS devices with integrated multimedia features, the C710 had moments of sluggishness when switching between different apps. The Mio C710's battery is rated for up to 4.5 hours of use.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9out of 9 user reviews
8 months Uk user
Pros: Functions,
Cons: post code search,
1.why o why do sat nav manufacturers use Tele-atlas! thier data is abysmal,
2.Mio c710 has the ability to show speed camera locations including the direction they're pointing, which is the main reason why I purchased this unit. The trouble is Mio only seem to get there data from user updates, which is fine as long as you have someway of checking this very unreliable source of information, this results in speed cameras on little back roads, for the only reason I can assume is as a bluff, perhaps the instigator lives in that street maybe!! and in some genuine speed camera positions there may be 5 or 6 icons which is anoying as this sends the unit potty and NONE of the camera's have thier direction set! very annoying.
3. The unit has a auto zoom feature which would be fantastic if it wasn't so enthusiatic, i.e. it zooms in keeping the view of your next turn just off screen so if you missed the voice instruction or the manouver is a bit complicated you have to wait until your right on top of the junction before you can see if you need to be in a specific lane, very annoying
4. Finaly at least once a day it crashes!! it restarts quick enough though, Little annoying
Appart from that it is a nice unit and I've put up with it for 8 months now, which says a lot considering that Tom Tom lasted about three weeks Novogo lasted about 1 hour Garmin lasted a couple of months I will go on to say I rate the garmin as the best unit available, it just the tiny speaker I can't hear,
out of 9 user reviews
Locks up regularly - When TMC Trial runs out you can't renew, - Terrible support
Pros: Great display, good easy navigation, Bluetooth works even on a Treo 650,
Cons: When the TMC trial runs out, you cannot renew it. Units locks up regularly. MIO support is rude and clueless
out of 9 user reviews
Not stable and poorly user friendly
Pros: Bright screen whatever the luminosity is.
Cons: You get lost in the different menus, there lack of logical consistency, my device completely blocked several times, a har reset was not sufficient. It has to be sent to the manufacturer. I
I don't advise anybody to buy such a GPS, at least for use in continental Europe.
Another poor service is that it can take up to 4 minutes before it gets satelite connection.
The maps are not accurate or are wrongly updated; e.g. it announces a round-about where the construction activities to update the roads cross are not started at all (you still find traffic lights, which is to me a safety issue...)
The Bluetooth connection generates bug and forces the device to stall. If you want to import addresses from your PC's Outlook, you get all your contacts downloaded and if there are 1500 contacts, the system stalls. You cannot pick-up addresses as you need, plus the software does not put the information at the right place (street, city,...), so it does not help...
out of 9 user reviews
cool design, easy to use.
Pros: design. easy to use. Fast route recalculation. Live traffic. Bluetooth phone.
Cons: Faded screen in sunlight. A little show in getting satellite lock. Sometime this device has bugs.
This device didn't have the best monitor. It's barely visible in direct sunlight. To fight this, I set the screen backlight to the brightest but then it's too bright at night. I think there is screen or filter I can get on ebay for this problem.
The time it took for this device to search for Satellite from cold start takes from 5 to 20 secs depends on the strenght of the signal. Once satellite are locked, searching, recalculating, or directing new route were lightly fast. Recalculation on miss turn happend in less than 3 secs.
This device doesn't have the text to speech feature. I don't need this feature anyway because I have no problem looking at device for street name to turn onto.
Not so good, there were bugs in this device sometimes. I had to quit the map and re-enter. Well, I bought 3 yr warranty for $30 so I am worry free.
The bluetooth feature was awesome. I was talking on phone hand-free and volumn was decent. This device comes with MP3 player and media player, and etc.. But, you need to have a SD card for this because the intergrated memory not so much. The device comes with a new map, but i had to install this map in the SD memory card until i figure out a way to get more room in the device for this new map.
I had the same problem. I was luck enough to got thru to the Customer Service after several tries. This guy told me that the company currently don't have the website to pay for TMC subscription (stupid, isn't it?) but Mio will have that online in next month or so.(for the TMC renewal). Then this guy told me that when message (to renew) msg pop up, turn off the device (using the on/off buttom at the bottom) then click "okay" like 3 times, it should bring the GPS back to normal use without the warning msg. Well....we tried, didn't work, so the guy told me to RMA it.
Anyway, i wasn't gonna give up. so I tried myself....bingo, it's not the on/off buttom. When the renewal msg popped up, pin the reset buttom at the bottom, then the device reset, warning msg popped up agin, click okay,then bingo....you have it.
I wrote a very good review for this device 2 weeks after I used it. Now I regreted like hell. This device is too slow in finding satellite (like 2 mins sometimes). Also, the device will tell you the address you entered is to a unreachable destination when I entered to go back my home!! The deadliest, the whole purpose that i bought this one was due to the Live Traffic Update service, after 3 mo of trial period, you will find out that the company don't have contract with TMC (live traffic provider) to let you subscribe. it's B8ll Sh8t.
out of 9 user reviews
Great unit but beware. The pre-installed maps are YEARS out of date.
Pros: Simple interface, easy to use. Very intuitive
Cons: None really... except there is no way to keep the USA maps current.
out of 9 user reviews
Mio 710 may be good but watch for customer support
Pros: Mio pruducts look good at first
Cons: Are they truly upgradeable
out of 9 user reviews
It works better than most other AIOs in sunlight!
Pros: Screen (yes, screen), speed
Cons: Little to no support from Mio (website is horrible)
That said if you don't need BT the 310x is a better buy, and can be hacked to do just about everything the C710 does (except BT, of course).
out of 9 user reviews
Very capable, but is it truly global?
Pros: Good satellite reception, clear screen, many features - good buy
Cons: Bluetooth, overseas use, lousy support
To get traffic info (TMC) it is necessary to use a separate antenna, included in box.
I experienced three major problems:
1. Frequently bad and/or very low sound when connecting cellphone with Bluetooth to use device as handsfree.
2. Intended to use device also in North America on frequent travels there. Was promised by retailer that additional N America map could be purchased online from Mio. But there is absolutely no info on this on Mio websites. Disappointing. Other competing devices in comparable price range offer trouble free Europe + N America capability.
3. Have twice e-mailed Mio's support in Europe to get info on how to purchase additional maps for North America. Automated response promises answer within one week. It has now been more than 8 weeks since first inquiry and there is still no sign of human activity at Mio's support center. Very disappointing.
Dispite the problems, the device itself is great and I can gladly recommend it (as long as you do not need to use is during overseas travel or need to consult the support center in Europe...). My rating refers to the device as such, i.e. disrarding the map and support problem.
************Here is an additon to my August 26 review. It was eventually possible to purchase the USA & Canada add-on by ordering online through Mio's European web-site. I did. The process was easy and delivery fast. Fair price. No problem to install, just insert the memory card in the slot. USA & Canada gets integrated in the menu system of the software (Mio Map); when entering a cross-border/out of state adress you have the choice, in alphabethical order, of European country, US State (Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico and Guam includer), or Canaidian province. Neat. The speedcam update download is still only available for Europe, though. The same seems to be the case for map updates.
out of 9 user reviews
i sold my Nuvi 350 to get this!
Pros: Good interface, user friendly, quick reception, helpful traffic info
Cons: The mount is bulky (to me anyway).
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