Mio Moov M400

Mio Moov M400

By Jamie Lendino

It's no secret that GPS prices have fallen tremendously in the past year. Most come in at under $300; and there are plenty of capable models available for less than $200, and that's not even counting the year-or-two-old models that have been discounted to less than $100. That said, it's tough to find newer model with a 4.3-inch widescreen display in the $150 range. Enter the Mio Moov M400: while it's not the most feature-rich device you'll find, it checks off all the most important boxes, including text-to-speech capability. Plus, it comes in at just $149.99. (The 3.5-inch version, the Moov M300, is just $119.99.) Unfortunately, the M400's sluggish response, frustrating UI, and inflexible POI database make it difficult to recommend over a more capable device—even one with a smaller LCD.

The Mio Moov M400 measures 3.2 by 5.0 by 0.7 inches (HWD) and weighs in at a rather light 4.9 ounces. The top edge of the unit features a sliding power switch. The bottom houses a mini-USB charger port and a notch for where the unit slides onto its bundled mount. The 4.3-inch touch screen has an anti-glare coating and sports an industry-standard 480-by-272-pixel resolution. Mio preloads maps for all 50 U.S. states as well as Puerto Rico, but leaves out Canada and Mexico. The package includes a USB power cord, a dashboard suction cup mount, and an adhesive disc for mounting the Moov M400 on your car's dashboard.

Powering up is relatively quick, and in my tests, the Moov M400 typically locked onto my location within seconds. The main icon display is clear enough, with big colorful graphics for navigating to various destinations, including home, favorites, recent places, specific addresses, or POIs. Scroll right, and you'll find shortcuts to various POI categories, plus a trip meter and NavPix, which navigates to destinations grabbed from geotagged photos, including 16 preloaded landmarks.

The Fast Route to Frustration
Dig deeper, though, and things fall apart. The on-board POI database contains four million entries—a few million less than TomTom and Garmin devices, and enough of a difference that it missed some long-standing restaurants in my area. Running searches isn't easy either. The device includes predictive text, which lets you key in just a few letters while the unit displays a range of possible choices. That's fine, but it doesn't extend searches to nearby towns—even if they're just a few miles away. For example, I ran a search for the nearest Vietnamese restaurant, which is three miles from my house. Not only did it fail to show up in a list of nearby restaurants, it didn't pop up when I began keying in the name—because it's technically in the next city over. No other device I've tested recently behaves this way. Also, the database doesn't split restaurants into subcategories by food type; consequently, running a "Nearby Restaurants" search brings up everything (at least until you get to the city border). Worse, with almost every key press, a spinning icon appeared for several seconds while the unit's slow CPU and Windows CE 5.0 OS tried to keep up.

The frustration continued once en route. The map display is cluttered with POI icons and street names; there's no way to turn any of it off, and there are only three zoom levels. For some strange reason, the Moov M400 measures distances in fractions, such as "1 1/8 mile." That, plus the tiny, blurry font, makes it tough to see how far away the next turn-off is. In my tests, the map updated at a speed of one frame per second. Worse, despite all the clutter, the main display only showed one piece of information at a time, such as the estimated time remaining, or the current road speed. You can bring up additional trip information by tapping the top right icon. But that pop-up covers a significant portion of the display, and the map doesn't re-center itself, so the presentation looks disjointed. A second pop-up menu shows current battery life and signal strength, but you can't display that on the screen simultaneously with the route data.

There's a rudimentary lane guidance feature that displays a series of arrows depicting the next turn-off. It lights up the one or two lanes you need to follow. That said, there's no 3D "reality view"-style lane assistance, like you'll get with TomTom devices, like the 540-S, and there are no real-time traffic reports, like you get on Garmin's entry-level nüvi 265T. And there's no current speed limit display—despite the picture on the box, which shows a "55" sign as part of the UI. On the plus side, you can set an overall warning chime for exceeding a single set speed (say 70 mph).

Voice prompts faired better. The on-board text-to-speech feature pronounces street, highway, and exit names. Some budget devices still omit this feature, so it's nice to see. In my tests, the device did a reasonable job with most streets and highway names, with only a few exceptions. That said, it had two annoying habits: The Moov M400 always repeated the name of the current city for all highways and exits—especially grating since it mispronounces my city name. And the voice prompts had odd-sounding intonations at times, as if it was asking questions: "Turn right in one-quarter of a mile and then—turn right?" I wanted to reply, "What are you asking me for?"

As far as extras, there aren't many. You won't find Bluetooth for connecting a cell phone, an MP3 player, a memory card slot, or an FM transmitter for piping sound through your car's stereo system. Mio throws in MioMore Desktop, a PC app that lets you update the unit's maps and POI database, report trip mileage, and transfer pictures to the internal storage. The lithium ion battery is good for just two hours of use, though that's not such a big deal since the device is meant for in-car use, where you can easily plug it in to juice it up.

There's plenty of competition for the Mio Moov M400, even if most of it lacks the 4.3-inch widescreen—but you have to spend a little bit more. The $200 TomTom One 140-S, our current Editors' Choice, only has a 3.5-inch LCD, but it's much easier to use, is more responsive in operation, and displays the speed limit of the current road. The 3.5-inch Garmin nüvi 265T ($220), meanwhile, offers free (ad-supported) real-time traffic reports, also displays the current speed limit, and has a stellar, responsive interface and clear map graphics. And both of these devices are also available in 4.3-inch versions for a few extra bucks. Finally, Mio's own Moov S501 costs just $50 more than the M400, but includes 12 million POIs, a 4.7-inch screen, and an improved interface. Any of these would be more sensible choices than the Mio Moov M400.