Mio C720t does directions, traffic, pictures--everything but drive

Mio DigiWalker C720t

(Credit: Mio )

It seems like there's a new company hopping on the GPS bandwagon every week, trying to loosen the grip that big boys Garmin, TomTom, and Magellan have on the market. Truth be told, these three companies have been in the industry for a while, and they know what they're doing, so these newcomers have a tough task ahead of them. However, we've been pretty impressed with one company in particular: Mio Technology. With the exception of the Mio C220, which had a horrible screen, it has consistently churned out some solid portable navigation systems and always packs in a good value for the price. Today, Mio continues that tradition with the announcement of three new products: the Mio DigiWalker C230, the Mio DigiWalker C320, and the subject of this blog, the Mio DigiWalker C720t.

There a number of cool things about the Mio C720t. First, it has a really sleek design similar to the Mio C520 and boasts a 4.3-inch touch screen. It also has a built-in 2-megapixel camera with zoom, so you can take pictures and geotag them with location coordinates. You can then use them as photo points of interest (POI) or share them with others. We've seen this feature before on the Navman iCN 750, but the C720t takes the cake with a better lens and slimmer form factor. That said, we have yet to test out this feature so we'll stop with the praises there. The unit also ships with a vehicle mount that has an integrated Traffic Message Channel receiver, and you get three months of free traffic service from Clear Channel. Other highlights include Bluetooth, maps of Mexico, text-to-speech functionality, and 12 million POI. The Mio DigiWalker C720t should be in stores by early October and will retail for about $599.

[ackmondual]

I agree Mio is doing pretty good so far

12 million POIs? That's good to know. My Mio c310x is preloaded with only 3.5 million. And a tiny minority of them no longer exist. Of course the 720t is a higher model, so I'm not That disappointed, especially since my GPS costed $170 after S&H. It also doesn't have a nice big screen, text to speech, and digicam. The ROM is only 1GB, so the map update may cause some POIs to disappear, but at least I don't get completely lost. I had some doubts about Mio, but I gotta say they're certainly holding their own

[ackmondual]

I agree Mio is doing pretty good so far

12 million POIs? That's good to know. My Mio c310x is preloaded with only 3.5 million. And a tiny minority of them no longer exist. Of course the 720t is a higher model, so I'm not That disappointed, especially since my GPS costed $170 after S&H. It also doesn't have a nice big screen, text to speech, and digicam. The ROM is only 1GB, so the map update may cause some POIs to disappear, but at least I don't get completely lost. I had some doubts about Mio, but I gotta say they're certainly holding their own

[ackmondual]

I agree Mio is doing pretty good so far

12 million POIs? That's good to know. My Mio c310x is preloaded with only 3.5 million. And a tiny minority of them no longer exist. Of course the 720t is a higher model, so I'm not That disappointed, especially since my GPS costed $170 after S&H. It also doesn't have a nice big screen, text to speech, and digicam. The ROM is only 1GB, so the map update may cause some POIs to disappear, but at least I don't get completely lost. I had some doubts about Mio, but I gotta say they're certainly holding their own

[davezatz]

Size matters?

I checked out the new Mio lineup today at DigitalLife. The C720t does look very sleek, especially compared to earlier Mio offerings (with the exception of that pendent model). But it's probably too large for those who travel quite a bit. I often find myself trying to navigate unfamiliar cities (via rental car) and I don't see myself packing something as large as this. The C230 is more my style in being compact. (Mio windsheild mounts also seem larger than much of the competition.) For $250 MSRP (under $200 online) it must be one of the cheapest models to include text-to-speech which I think is a must-have GPS feature.

[davezatz]

Size matters?

I checked out the new Mio lineup today at DigitalLife. The C720t does look very sleek, especially compared to earlier Mio offerings (with the exception of that pendent model). But it's probably too large for those who travel quite a bit. I often find myself trying to navigate unfamiliar cities (via rental car) and I don't see myself packing something as large as this. The C230 is more my style in being compact. (Mio windsheild mounts also seem larger than much of the competition.) For $250 MSRP (under $200 online) it must be one of the cheapest models to include text-to-speech which I think is a must-have GPS feature.

[davezatz]

Size matters?

I checked out the new Mio lineup today at DigitalLife. The C720t does look very sleek, especially compared to earlier Mio offerings (with the exception of that pendent model). But it's probably too large for those who travel quite a bit. I often find myself trying to navigate unfamiliar cities (via rental car) and I don't see myself packing something as large as this. The C230 is more my style in being compact. (Mio windsheild mounts also seem larger than much of the competition.) For $250 MSRP (under $200 online) it must be one of the cheapest models to include text-to-speech which I think is a must-have GPS feature.