Mio's Digiwalker C230 GPS Reviews

Introducing the new C-230 model GPS from Mio-Tech

Mio Digiwalker C230 takes everything loved about the C220 like its great style, intuitive easy to use menus and design, and of course, the very affordable price. They used these as the base and then improved everything they had complaints about. People didn’t like the screen so they updated it to a new anti-glare display with a bright backlight. People didn’t like having a separate SD card that held the maps so they have preloaded the maps onto the flash memory to keep the SD memory card slot free for anything else you might want to load up onto it. The biggest improvement on the Mio C230 over the Mio C220 and the first time we have ever seen this feature implemented onto an entry-level portable navigation system is the text-to-speech functionality which is a big deal if you have ever crashed trying to figure out which street on the map you had to turn at in 500 yards.

Getting Started with the Mio Digiwalker C230 GPS

As soon as you open the box with your device in it you should make sure everything is there. The box should include the actual Mio C230 gps unit, a car charger, an AC charger, the mounting device, the cradle to hold the unit that attaches to the mounting device, a USB cord, a small reference book, and the software for your computer.

1. Power Button
2. External Antenna Connector
3. Power LED
4. 3.5″ LCD Screen
5. Mini-USB Connector
6. SD/MMC connector
7. Mounting Hole
8. Speaker
9. On/Off Switch

I have never owned a GPS system before so I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on one just to find out it didn’t make a huge difference with my driving. I’m not terrible with directions, I just thought it would be easier if I didn’t have to do all the planning myself.

The Mio C230 DigiWalker has proven to be well worth the money I paid on it. I like being able to customize my route with options like choosing between the fastest, shortest, or most economical route. I think it’s cool how if I have a bunch of places to go I can put them all in and it will find the fastest way to hit all of them along the way.

I own a Mio DigiWalker C220 and when the Mio C 230 GPS version came out I had to upgrade it because of all the great improvements I heard about. There were three main areas of improvement that made my mind up on the upgrade. The text-to-speech, preloaded maps, and brighter screen.

This is the only device I have found under $350 that has the text-to-speech feature. It is such an important feature if you are trying to rely on just the voice to tell you where to turn. The preloaded maps are really nice because on my C220 I had to load the map in with the SD card and sometimes it would fail to read it which was just a hassle. Not to mention losing the little tiny card and not having any maps for you GPS which would make it kind of useless. Having the SD card slot open will be beneficial if there are any updates or new maps that you might ever need to load up.

This is my first time buying a Mio and I’m very impressed with what they are offering for such an affordable price with the DigiWalker C230 from Mio GPS company. The start up time is very quick, always under 30 seconds for me. The menus are easy to navigate with nice big buttons for my stubby fingers and the screen is nice and bright so it’s easy to read. One feature lots of travel assistants seem to leave out is an easily accessible volume button. This one has one right on the map screen. Not a huge feature but it saves having to navigate around through settings menu to get at it. Another feature lots of the cheaper travel assistants don’t have is the text-to-speech feature. You really don’t know how helpful this is until you’ve used a device without it.

Review By: Mitchell S, Baltimore
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Before buying the Mio C230 GPS, I didn’t know much about GPS travel assistants. I’ve never owned one before but I’m terrible with directions so I thought I’d try one out. The only problem is I’m also terrible with technology so I didn’t know if it would really help me or if I’d spend the whole time driving fighting with the thing. The guy at the store I went to recommended the C230 and I couldn’t argue with the price so I picked it up. I’m really amazed with how easy it is to use. When I leave my house I just put in the address I want to go to and I don’t touch it again. It tells me exactly when to turn and I turn, quite simple. I even figured out how to add extra points to my route and how to avoid certain roads.

Review By: Frankie H, Kentucky
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I’ve owned a few travel assistants before and the Mio DigiWalker C230 is my favorite so far. I buy travel assistants for just that purpose, to assist me with traveling, not to play my MP3’s or answer my phone calls(although Bluetooth doesn’t seem like all that bad of a feature to have). I don’t want to spend an extra $200-300 on features that I don’t really use but a lot of companies seem to only use the top quality GPS receivers and stuff in their high end devices. It’s good to see that Mio is using the SiRFstarIII WAAS enabled chip with 20 channels in their C230 along with their high end units. The text-to-speech capability had me sold. This was the only affordable device I could find with it!

Review by: Stephan H, Baltimore
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