Mio DigiWalker GPS Navigator
November 2005
Why Walk on the Wild Side?
By Grant Clauser
The Mio DigiWalker 136 is a handheld and in-car GPS navigator that's a bit of a mix between the PDA variety and a standard portable unit. You can take it with you when you leave your car, and use it to help you get around town even when you're just hoofing it.
The DigiWalker is about the size of a PDA, and sports a nice-sized 3.5-inch color LCD display. It doesn't contain a hard drive, so you have to load the maps yourself with a PC, but it does come with a 256MB MultiMedia card which will hold the maps and Points-of-Interest for several states. What makes this Mio really stand out from other products is that it has a built-in rechargeable battery, so you can charge it up and use it away from a car. The Mio also has another trick up its sleeve—it can play MP3 files, and thus be not only your guide, but your iPod as well.
The DigiWalker is considerably smaller than most navigational devices—much smaller than those offered by Garmin and Magellan, which use hard drives to store the map data. It can fit in a jeans pocket, but it'll be a tight fit. It comes with a swiveling base for installation on your car's dashboard via double-sided tape—which is nice because it's very secure, but also doesn't let you transfer the base from one car to another—a real downside if you travel and use rental cars. Other units I've used attached to a car's windshield via a suction cup.
The maps are easily loaded onto the MultiMedia card with a PC. If you don't have a card reader in your computer, don't worry. The DigiWalker comes with a USB card reader. The map data is divided into seven (check) areas and loads easily, but if you want to load more than one region, you'll need a bigger card. I used my own 512 MB card to hold two regions since I was going on a long trip.
Once in use, the DigiWalker was a mixed bag. The interface is a bit confusing at times, and unless you can remember what all the icons mean, you'll have trouble using it the first few times, unlike the Magellan units which are really self-explanatory. The Points-of Interest database also seemed to be lacking. It didn't show a couple of major hotels and long-standing restaurants in a large Midwestern city I was visiting. Also, when looking for Points-of-Interest, the unit doesn't let you specify the state or city. You have to search through the whole database of the map currently stored on the card, or you can go into the settings to narrow down the radius of the search field (three miles, six miles…), which makes it a time-consuming process. On the other hand, whenever I keyed in an address with the unit's PDA-like stylus, it always faithfully got me to the destination, even rerouting me when I intentionally went off track. The on-screen map and directions are well-laid out and easy to read from dashboard length, while voice prompts let you know when a turn is coming up.
By Grant Clauser
The Mio DigiWalker 136 is a handheld and in-car GPS navigator that's a bit of a mix between the PDA variety and a standard portable unit. You can take it with you when you leave your car, and use it to help you get around town even when you're just hoofing it.
The DigiWalker is about the size of a PDA, and sports a nice-sized 3.5-inch color LCD display. It doesn't contain a hard drive, so you have to load the maps yourself with a PC, but it does come with a 256MB MultiMedia card which will hold the maps and Points-of-Interest for several states. What makes this Mio really stand out from other products is that it has a built-in rechargeable battery, so you can charge it up and use it away from a car. The Mio also has another trick up its sleeve—it can play MP3 files, and thus be not only your guide, but your iPod as well.
The DigiWalker is considerably smaller than most navigational devices—much smaller than those offered by Garmin and Magellan, which use hard drives to store the map data. It can fit in a jeans pocket, but it'll be a tight fit. It comes with a swiveling base for installation on your car's dashboard via double-sided tape—which is nice because it's very secure, but also doesn't let you transfer the base from one car to another—a real downside if you travel and use rental cars. Other units I've used attached to a car's windshield via a suction cup.
The maps are easily loaded onto the MultiMedia card with a PC. If you don't have a card reader in your computer, don't worry. The DigiWalker comes with a USB card reader. The map data is divided into seven (check) areas and loads easily, but if you want to load more than one region, you'll need a bigger card. I used my own 512 MB card to hold two regions since I was going on a long trip.
Once in use, the DigiWalker was a mixed bag. The interface is a bit confusing at times, and unless you can remember what all the icons mean, you'll have trouble using it the first few times, unlike the Magellan units which are really self-explanatory. The Points-of Interest database also seemed to be lacking. It didn't show a couple of major hotels and long-standing restaurants in a large Midwestern city I was visiting. Also, when looking for Points-of-Interest, the unit doesn't let you specify the state or city. You have to search through the whole database of the map currently stored on the card, or you can go into the settings to narrow down the radius of the search field (three miles, six miles…), which makes it a time-consuming process. On the other hand, whenever I keyed in an address with the unit's PDA-like stylus, it always faithfully got me to the destination, even rerouting me when I intentionally went off track. The on-screen map and directions are well-laid out and easy to read from dashboard length, while voice prompts let you know when a turn is coming up.
