Windows Phone Thoughts: Mitac Mio Digiwalker 168 Review

Mio Map and POI (continued)


Figure 14: Mio Map view menu.


Figure 15: Mio Map 3D view.


Figure 16: Mio Map bird's eye view.

The View menu allows maps to be displayed in a two dimensional overhead view (like a paper map), in a three dimensional view (which gives a bit of perspective), and a "bird's eye view" (which is like the three dimensional view but with a higher perspective). There is no elevation on the maps so the three dimensional and bird's eye views don't show land features like hills, but they do give a slightly more realistic view of the road.


Figure 17: Mio Map in night colors. The labels and roads really stand out in the dark without blinding you.

Also, the maps can be toggled between a day color skin and a night color skin. Switching to night color skin displays roads as grey on black which helps to prevent wrecking your night vision while using the device. Specific maps can be selected from the list of loaded maps from the View menu, and three different route views can be selected: Turn-by-turn which allows you to step back and forth through each step of the route, Driving Directions which displays a complete list of each turn in the route, and Show Route which zooms out to show the entire route along with the distance, ETR, and ETA.


Figure 18: Mio Map GPS settings.

Because the Mio Map software isn't tied directly to the built-in GPS it is possible to configure it to work with any GPS unit. The COM port and Baud rate are fully user selectable, and the software supports both the NMEA and the SiRF communications protocols. The Find GPS button allows the Mio Map software to search for any attached GPS that communicates within these parameters.

A Caveat
The Mio Map software prevents the Pocket PC from being inactive so it will not enter sleep mode automatically while in use. This is useful as it avoids the need for manual intervention to keep the Pocket PC active while using the navigation features for an extended period of time. The user must be careful to shut down the Mio Map software when storing the unit, however, as simply turning off the Pocket PC will suspend operations, but will not exit the Mio Map software. If the Pocket PC is configured to enter run mode when a hardware button is pressed, the unit will start up and the Mio Map software will still be running in the background. This will prevent the unit from shutting down until manually made to do so. This can be an issue if you inadvertently turn the unit on while it is stored in a bag or briefcase and return only to find the unit with a drained battery.