2. Making Music And Transferring Files

The Mio isn't as intuitive as an iPod or other MP3 player, mainly because there are no dedicated control buttons, only ones on the touch screen surface. Take a look at its main screen for choosing music files, shown in Figure 3.

Music player screen

As you can see, there are a lot of buttons and controls here, jammed into a small space. You'll want to spend some time getting used to the various functions and modes of operation, because they aren't obvious. An example is the control that allows you to shuffle through your music songs continuously, which when pressed will just sample the first few seconds of each song. This "playback" control has about seven different modes, and the icons don't really mean much, so you'll need to consult the manual to figure it all out. One nice feature is that you can play music in the background while the GPS is running.

Moving information into and out of the Mio is not its strong suit. You have two basic choices: make use of the Windows-based file transfer utility that comes with the software CD (see Figure 4), or transfer MP3s and photos to an SD or MMC card that you can move between your PC and the unit itself. The file transfer utility has a rather amateurish look to it. You connect the Mio to your PC via its USB port, and also charge it with this port.

File transfer utility. Other than saving information directly to the SD card itself, this is the only other way to move MP3s, videos, and contacts into the device.

A better alternative would be to have the Mio recognized as an external USB hard drive, the way many MP3 players are currently designed. Better yet, the device could be recognized by iTunes, so that music could be more readily synchronized between PC and Mio.

In actual practice, the utility worked most of the time. Well, let me qualify that slightly: I could move any photo or MP3 and have it viewed or played on the device easily - as long as they weren't copy protected by DRM of course - but had much more trouble with transferring videos. There is yet another software utility required for that, and each video will have to be converted for the Mio to recognize its format.

The music sounded pretty good with the built-in speaker, and even better with the earbuds, which were on par with those of other portable music players that I have used. The photos looked about as good as they can on a small screen.

Depending on the size of your SD card, you can store a reasonable quantity of music on your Mio. There is 64 MB of storage available on the unit's internal storage, in addition to whatever you bring on the add-in card.

You'll need to connect the Mio to your PC for other reasons besides moving music, too. If you want weather and travel updates, this information will have to be downloaded via an Internet-connected PC, using yet another piece of software. The file transfer utility will supposedly synchronize your contacts with Outlook and the built-in Mio contact manager, but I couldn't get this to work properly.

Bottom Line

Overall, I would pass on the Mio. If you are looking for a best-in-class GPS, the TomTom series has more features and bigger screens, though they are designed for permanent mounting in cars. If you do a lot of walking or biking the Mio might be a useful unit, but you'll need to get used to the screen's interface and controls because they are not obvious, and there are many steps involved to plotting your route. If you need to carry a lot of your music with you, one of the iPods or other MP3 players can deliver more storage in a smaller package.

Join our discussion on this topic