Mitac Mio C510E

without a doubt the Mitac Mio C510E is the best sat nav i have owned.

wouldnt be without it.

My wife bought me this Mitac Mio C510E from a TV shopping channel, pile of rubbish (wished she'd asked) tries to take me through fields and on roads that don't exist. Support is non existant, save your time, frustration and money; buy a better brand.

Everything in awful...Incorrect turns...keeps making u-turns even when deactivated...(dead end streets..) when you need it most it will say ERROR RESTARTING....Jerking on maps a LOT...Not one correct speed indication...confused of North EAST South WEST....Takes it a wile to realise....this with full GPS signal.

Mio just give it up ....And support suck in South Africa....Every one gives the other the blame.

The Mitac Mio C510 is easy to use, very clear picture quality, excellent sound, lots of features and a great design. Highly recommended.

I bought my Mitac Mio C510E reconditioned and saved £10 off the best retail price I'd seen previously. The C510E can be used pretty much straight out of the box, with a few niggling questions answered by visiting the Mio Tech website, registering the device and downloading the full manuals.

Street level mapping is reasonably accurate but don't expect it to be as detailed as the maps found on much more expensive devices. Keep your wits about you when the Mio tells you to make a turn as the maps don't have any info about one-way streets. The device will recalculate your route in a few seconds if you do miss a turning so it's still a better option than trying to balance a street atlas on your steering wheel! GPS accuracy is within 30 metres, so even if the map info is bad you should at least be within sight of what you're looking for.

Don't take the speed limits shown in the cockpit view too seriously either. I saw 60 on the Mio when I was passing through a 40 zone. Rely on the roadsigns, not the PND! The Mio's GPS speedo is very accurate but the speed limit info in its map files is badly out of date in some places.

Battery life is disappointing. If you have the backlight on all the time, expect the device to conk out after about 2 hours. No problem if you're in a car but it could be tricky if you're using the device on a bike or to navigate around a strange city on foot.

Another problem crops up when you try to load more map files onto the Mio. It comes pre-loaded with maps for the UK, Ireland and the major routes of Europe. There is enough room in the internal flash memory to load another region, so I loaded France and Benelux. Unfortunately my PC's anti-virus and firewall software corrupted the map files. As the Mio runs the Windows CE OS, this prompted the device to show up a fatal error. All that I could do was reset the device and start loading maps from scratch, this time with my PC's firewall and anti-virus firmly switched off!

The Mio manuals don't explain how to transfer map files onto an SD card (the device has a slot for extra memory) but with a little experimentation I found that I could create the required Miomap/Maps folder on the SD card and transfer map files successfully using the Mio Transfer MP3/photo software. Each file transfer takes quite a long time but you end up with a reasonably detailed map of Europe eventually!

Compared to other PND's, the Mio C510E is genuinely pocket-sized and there are optional brackets available for you to fit it to your bicycle or motorcycle. There is a useful tab on the wrist strap with stylus points for accurate navigation of the slightly fussy 3.5 inch touch screen. The stylus points also allow you to reach the recessed reset button in the event of the device crashing.

The Mio has a lot of shortcomings compared to many better-known PND's but these are comfortably offset by its flexibility and affordable price

Excellent maps and fast signal acquisition even with heat reflective windscreen. Reroute is within seconds of wrong turn and places you back to original route very quickly. Out of car and into pocket - great for walking or touring on foot, will take you back to start point by most direct route.

Overall probably the best portable Sat-Nav I have owned, and I have had the so called best.

If you want the best you have got to know how to use it. I dare say they could simplify user operation but it would not give the return.

Mitac have produced an excellent machine, but like all else first acquire the knowledge to gain the reward. Thanks Mitac a job well done.

Very disappointed with the Mitac Mio C510E....especially if I had been fined for driving the wrong way down a one way street.....it is good at directing you to your destination. On one occasion it told me to take the second road on the left, and as I passed the first road on the left, it said "turn back". So on this occasion it was useless.......I should have purchased an AA map and saved a lot of money on this useless thing.

And trying to get any information from mitac is totally impossible......support is none existent.

I got this GPS after having a look round. I had Tomtom but I can tell you this is better and neater, it fits in your pocket and good price. When I got it out of the box it was up and running in about 4 min. It picks up GPS satellites just great. I can even pick them up in my house.

The Mitac Mio C510E is good, but not for the novice. If anyone has a procedure for loading the maps from the CD to the SD card I would like to hear from them!

amazing value and no disadvantages that I can find over the leading brands at ridiculous prices