Mitac Mio 269

I bought my Mitac Mio 269 in May 2005 (~300GBP). Recently I applied all the new patches, only to find none of my old maps will work anymore (no warning on site). Anyway in the MIO e-shop you can now no longer buy the Western EU or US map and MIO effectively say it is unsupported. As I feel a bit agrieved to buy a new system, I have simply downloaded the maps & new software off the internet (naughty me). What spares I can buy for the 269 are not cheap and include a ' 20 shipping fee even on the smallest item. eg, => ~ ' 32 for 3 Stylus's.

It has been a good bit of kit & my only issue was occasional long GPS locking but the new software (while a bit unstable) is better at this.

If you want to be told which non-existent turns to take to fall 500 metres to the rocks below on the approach road to the Mont Blanc Tunnel, buy one.

If you want to be taken 3 times around Navarra, Italy, buy one.

If you want a message that there is no GPS signal from the French Alps through to London, buy one.

If you want to be told to U turn on an Autostrade and once having got the car facing the opposite direction only to be told to U turn again, buy one.

In fact, buy one and get hopelessly lost.

Absolutely made up with value for money for the Mio 269.

£168 from local Halfords (which is relocating),included in the price was an upgrade for the 2005 mapping. Aall I had to do was fax or e-mail a scanned image of my receipt to their web site, three days later the DVD arrived. Took about five minutes calculating a route from NW England to an individual address in France!

I bought the Mio 268 at Easy Devices.co.uk and I think it's amazing for the price I paid. Like other GPS systems I've owned previously there are roads missing from the map. But as I said, this also happened with my previous TomTom setup. It's just the way it is... no SatNav systems have 100% coverage.

I like the size and shape of the device and it is a lot easier to use on foot than the TomTom GO (which won't fit into any pocket that I know of).

I also like the fact that I can play my MP3 files on it.

Big thumbs up from me.

I bought this navigation system I think its Mio 168. It's a waste of time and money. Please do not buy this one. Its software is many many years old. New roundabouts, flyovers and under passes and new motorways have been there for over 5 years. But this one does not see it. Many times I was instructed to turn in to NO ENTRY. Not recommended to any one. In simple English. Its a waste, a total waste.

I have had trouble with both of the Mio's I have obtained. I would not recommend this product and would advise anyone wishing to purchase a Satellite navigation to buy a Tom Tom and be done with looking.

Buy at your own risk I say!!!

Bought this to help me with work travelling and it's pretty good for the price I paid (£400). The unit is neat and seems well built but the software is a bit clunky. Full postcode searches are not possible although partial ones (BD23 9) are. It can therefore take some time to find your destination in the database if you don't know the exact address. There's a "points of interest" option that is useful though - allows things like, "find the nearest petrol station". Unfortunately it's not customisable. There is the function to save destinations and given the 269's 2.5Gb hard drive you could store a lot! Directions are either 2 or 3D but I found that the refresh rate of the 3D view was too slow - 2d is fine with plenty of information. There's a nice option which matches the zoom of the view to the speed you are doing. This means you get nice big views of junctions and roundabouts as you slow down and plenty of advanced notice of tight bends on fast roads. Voice commands (female only) are in general, well timed and not nearly as irritating as some other units I've heard. They do take a bit of getting used to though. You soon learn to virtually ignore the "bear left / right" commands as they are often totally irrelevant or even wrong! I now glance at the map to verify a turn. Routing is either fastest or shortest which can be a bit limiting. I recently planned a route up to North Wales using MS Autoroute and then programmed a few waypoints into the Mio which worked very well even if it did take a while to prepare.

The 269 has a built in MP3 player and the ability to synch up to MS Outlook contacts. The latter would be brilliant if you could scroll to a contact and then navigate to them. Unfortunately, you can't and as such it's a complete waste of time!

Generally I think the 269 is very good value for money. For the same price as the Tomtom Go you get full European street level mapping in a much neater package. The software lets it down a bit but as it's V1.0 - I guess you can't expect too much. I've grown used to it and would find it very difficult to go back to the old AA maps!