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| Brand: Mio
Category: CE
List Price: $399.95
Buy Used: $230.00
You Save: $169.95 (42%)
New (5) from $288.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  128 reviews
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Tracks: Unknown
Native Resolution: 480 x 272
Display Size: 4.3
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 4.9 x 3.1 x 0.8
MPN: 526216470101
Model: 526216470101
UPC: 841881002437
EAN: 0841881002437
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Mio C520 was great on a 4,500 mid-cross country trip ! although not perfect. July 4, 2007
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
My wife and I purchased a mio C520 GPS for a trip the next day from St. Louis, MO to Denver, CO thru Estes Park, down to Colorado Springs, CO , over to San Diego, CA up to San Francisco, CA via US highway 1 then to Napa Valley, CA then to the Grand Canyon and back the southern route thru AZ, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and St. Louis.
The mio C520 GPS did a great job, although not perfect. I'd give it a 95% job. From street address to street address it did 100% job of getting you there. A few times it plotted a zig-zag route on a three mile strech to a restraunt that i would have preferred to go a little longer and slower on a straight away, but i guess it was shorter.
What is the great feature is knowing throught the trip how far away gas stations are as they can be sparse in the desert and remote parts of the trip. the Mio also found some great restraunts just a few miles (4) off the interstate. It also has the phone number and address of the points of interest in addition to showing it on a map. It even had a sandwich shop overlooking the pacific on Highway 1. Even though the last update to POI was April 2007, some restraunts had closed, we only has two we found. which i can't fault the mio on. Hotels listings were great as my wife and I would drive until we felt like calling it a night.
We could use the mio to gauge distances of further out hotels. The main screen tells you if the gas stations are ahead of you, behind you or to the side of your current location, very nice. On the logding listing, the mio tells you the distance but not the direction. So you have to know the citites you have passed and what's ahead. There were a lot of hotels and restraunts in the Grand Canyon that the mio did not even list which was surprising. Overall it did a great job finding places if you want more than fast food off the highway. The mio did list just abount every small street that we encountered which was especially helpful since many did not have street signs where we turned.
The graphics and map with 3-D are cool, it makes it seem as if you are driving a futuristic "Jetson's " car or spacecraft.
You can adjust the brightness down at nighttime, it can do it automatically too. The display was always readable even in the sun. The battery did not seem to last long (a few hours) so make sure you use the included auto adapter. It also comes with an a/c plug and usb cable.
The English (UK) quite realistic British accented voice Thomas made the trip quite enjoyable with his style and pronnunciation to add a touch of elegance. Althought Thomas only give distances for turning as in turn right in 1/4 of a mile. You have to look at the screen for the street name. Announcing street names (Called text-to-speech) is only available in Englishg (US) Samatha voice.
The English (US) voice samamtha gives street names although her voice is somewhat robotic, I guess I was expecting a southern belle voice after the great job mio did with Thomas' voice.
A solo driver can follow the navagation directions, however you must for safety have the passenger use the other features aside from gas stations distances which can be chosen as an option to display on the split screen.
Other split screen are mileage remaining on trip and distance to next turn.
Several other languages are also included. I did not use any of the bluetooth capabilities.
I would recommend the mio C520 strongly.
 Fantastic idea but lacking in implementation. July 20, 2007
12 out of 15 found this review helpful
I previously owned a Garmin Nuvi 350. In my eyes it was a fantastic GPS. The only downside to it was that it was VERY basic with basically zero advanced options. As well, the maps were pretty out of date (even the new 2008 released did not have some streets in my development which is almost about 11 years old).
Anyhow, so I decided to try out the C520 since I had purchased the C310x for my wife last year. My wife loves her c310x. In fact I just purchased the $25 map update from Mio for her. I liked the c310x but I wanted TTS. So that's the main reason I went out and got the c520; that and the fact that it already came preloaded with the new map release.
In all I'm happy enough with the c520. As I predicted, I love all of the advanced features. It's a bit of a shame however that they removed a number of advanced features that the c310x had. Cockpit mode is gone, ability to adjust the "information" displayed while routing is gone, etc... So to me, and in comparison with my Nuvi 350, there are A LOT of negatives. Here's my list of pros and cons for the c520:
Pros:
-loads of advanced options
-ability to avoid a certain road (very nice if you know there is going to be traffic on that road)
-bluetooth connection (works great with my 700p)
-maps seem pretty accurate and updated in my area (philly suburb)
Cons (as I said there are A LOT):
-HUGE downfall for me is that it does not turn on/off automatically with the ignition. you have to manually turn it on/off EVERY time. the "turn off in 10 min. if not used" does not work. It will stay on until the battery dies unless you hit the power button. VERY big inconvenience for me as I drive a lot. The Nuvi has a feature where it shuts down automatically after 30 seconds when it loses DC power.
-windshield mount is a joke. it needs to bend in about 3 more directions. my nuvi was mounted next to the driver's A-pillar. the Mio's mount only bends a few directions making it not fit there.
-screen is washed out compared to the nuvi's. colors are not vibrant and it is lacking contrast.
-map and text are VERY tiny making it hard to see (Nuvi's screen was smaller yet the text was double the size)
-there is only one voice for TTS and it is HORRIBLE. it's very robotic and metallic sounding. it's next to impossible to understand what the heck she is saying, not to mention the volume doesn't go very high so you have to make sure the radio is down and the AC is not cranked all the way up.
-it's VERY chatty. within the last mile before your turn it probably warns you about 6 times. turn in 1 mile, turn in 1/2 mile, turn in 1/4 mile, turn in 300 ft, turn right, etc...
-as another reviewer pointed out, it's satellite fix is not always correct. it has my house listed as being about 40 houses down from where it actually is. so when i go "home" it literally takes me to someone else's house 40 houses down, even though i put my number in.
-when on certain roads it does NOT give the exit number and sometimes it doesn't even tell you what direction to go. for example, driving on a highway you may come up to 295 north and 295 south. my Garmin would say "take exit 23, on right, to route 295 north". the c520 just says "bear right onto route 295". well 295 what? north? south? what exit number? do i REALLY have to look at the screen to try and figure this out while I'm trying to merge into 4 lanes of traffic? NOT a good design.
So in all, while there are A LOT of negatives, I am going to hold onto the c520 in HOPES that Mio releases some firmware updates that correct some of these issues and maybe add a few more TTS voices.
 Many Features! June 7, 2007
11 out of 12 found this review helpful
As being a previous owner of the Mio 310x, I thought an upgrade to the 4 inch model would be nice to try. Well I was right, this just adds to my excitement of the Mio brand and format. Overall, I just love this GPS unit. My favorite part of the C520 is the voice guidence, same voices from the C310x but it includes one more... Text-To-Speach, a womans voice, which gives it the ability to be more precise, telling you road names(not always perfect pronounciation but works well) as well the distance. 3D mapping makes it sweeter, as you get closer to you next turn or change it zooms closer in, when you turn, it zooms back out and arrows point your direction out, 2D is a option too. The unit can display your distance, speed, time, and time to arrive at your destination. Since it has a larger screen, it will display either your speed and time or you can have it give you the next four Points of Interest, like gas stations and points a arrow compass from your current location to them. Night mode is a great feature, it turns the screen dark black, roads blue and guide in red, very cool.
This unit also has 2GB of memory built in as well a SD card slot, so you can add and play videos, music or load pictures to view, Calculator and Currency exchange tool. Bluetooth included to, havent tried since I dont have it on my current cellphone.
My only negitive part of the unit, same with the C310x, is if you turn it off at night and go back to it in the morning, it can take 30secs to a minute to link back up to the Satallites, not a huge issue but enough to point out.
Maps very accurate in my area, upgrade from the C310x, I would recommend this to anyone looking for a GPS.
 Big promises but not a good product November 26, 2007
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
I purchased this unit last week because I had kind of been looking at them and was preparing for a 1400 mile trip so I decided to go ahead and get it. I had read C-net's reviews and they ranked this as one of the top 6 GPS must have units. I was impressed by the looks and features offered. I wanted bluetooth capability which this unit had and not many others at this price point. I had a few days to try it out around town and on my trip and I am extremely dissapointed. First off and probably the biggest issue is the unit is very inaccurate, I would estimate about 1/2 mile off. Not a big deal when you know your destination but if looking for a specific address it is a major flaw. It does not tell you what side of the street your destination address is on, not sure if other units do. When exiting from one highway to another where you could go multiple directions it does not tell you the direction you need to go until after you exit. Once again not a big deal if there are two exits like 12A and 12B but if there was one exit with a split, this could be a major issue, especially if it were like a spagetti bowl where it was not a simple left or right deal.
Bluetooth performance, one of the reasons I purchased this unit because I had been considering a handsfree car device already, is almost unusable. The functionality of it is excellent and I had no issues paring it with my RAZR V3xx, or downloading my address book like many have mentioned, but the volume is so low you can't hear the person you are talking to over road noise and they can't hear you. There is also no way of adjusting the default volume, which is about 1/2, on the bluetooth so before I realized it was useless I found myself quickly trying to raise the volume on each call.
The unit has a couple of neat features like the ability to mark stationary traffic monitoring devices like red light cameras. The problem is that once marked it doesn't notify you in any way that the camera is there, it just places a tiny camera icon at the location you marked so unless you happen to be looking very closely at the map when you approached the location you wouldn't be aware. The unit is supposed to have many known devices already marked but after driving around a city with many of them, I have found none pre-loaded. Other neat features like warnings of your speed don't seem to work either. The device has the ability to show the speed limit of the road you are on, if known, but I have found no streets that show the speed limit, even major interstates that traverse the country. You can also set an "alternate" max speed and have the unit warn you if you exceed that speed by a set threshhold. I did this and exceeded that speed well beyond the set tolerance many times and it gave no warning. I did have the above features enabled in the settings.
Support on the device is horrible. There is no reference in the manual or on the company web site about when map updates, or expansions are available, how to get them, or if there is a cost involved. I have read on some forums that there is a cost for any map updates. The unit also had the ability to get live traffic updates when used with an optional cradle. Once again, no mention of if/when this cradle is available, the cost or of it at all actually on the website. You can subscribe to the traffic service though, ha.
The unit does have a farily extensive POI database, even compared to other units. After initially setting the POI categories I wanted to see, I could not figure out how to further alter them. I initially selected to show asian restaurants but I never knew just how many of them there actually are! There is a category for "my poi" and In the manual it says there is an application on the CD that allows you to import your own POIs from a spreadsheet, or to import up to date lists. My CD did not come with this application and of course, there was no download for it on the website.
The unit has some other negatives that may just be me nitpicking. Like it only comes with a quick setup guide, the full guide is on the CD. For a device like this that is used primarliy away from a computer, I expect a full manual so it could be referenced when you are on the road and have a question, like happened to me many times. I would also like the ability to set more than 2 favorite destinations. Currenly you can set home and work and unless any other favorites happen to be in your history you have to re-enter the address. I personally don't know any addresses other than work or home and would assume that most who would need a GPS would either. You can import your outlook address book including addresses but getting to them and back to the map is a pain. You have to exit the map application to get to the address book and once the address is found you have to restart the application which takes a minute or 2. Additionally the DC cord is a little short for larger vehicles limiting mounting options.
Bottom line, this unit has great potential, it looks great and has a great interface. It was nice to have on my road trip simply for the ETA and GPS speed functions (I have larger tires so my speedo is off). Most of the issues I have listed could probably be fixed with a software update but like I stated earlier the manufacturer gives no indication of if or when one is coming, or even acknoledges any of the issues in any of the FAQs even though most are being discussed extensively on the GPS forums. Since I don't know when or if my unit will be patched to function properly, I will be returning it and I can't recommend it to anyone else.
Best GPS unit for the money May 24, 2007
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
The Mio c520 GPS unit is the full featured unit at a reasonable price. Compare this unit to the Garmin Nuvi 660, and the Mio is by far a better unit for half the price. The C520 comes with updated 2007 maps, which are very accurate. Routing is great, and Mio has increased the number of POI's to 6 million compared to the 3.5 million on the c310x. The 4.3 inch screen is great. The bluetooth function works well, and it has the ability to dial numbers from the POI database as well as from the phonebook feature. If you make the call private, it has a feature to send the call to the handset. Routing is much better than in my c310x, and the text to speech with street names is a nice feature. While not perfect, the digital voice pronounces street names pretty good. I noticed one reader asked about the brightness of the screen, it is not as vivid as the 310x, but is more than adequate (about the same as the Nuvi 660). I checked out several other GPS units before buying the MIO, and found none that compared with the exception of the Nuvi 660, which sells for $799 compared to the Mio at $399. That alone made it a no brainer.
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