GPS Sat Nav Systems

An exceptional navigation experience that comes wrapped in an enticing price making it a real hit, but don’t expect much in terms of looks though – well, this is how we would like to describe the Mio Spirit 687 Sat Nav. Mio’s latest lineup of Sat Nav’s, the Spirit range seems to pack a whole host of features that is model specific like premium traffic info, subscription free, Pedestrian Mode, Parking assistance, Learn Me, IQ Routes, Lane Assistance and 3D junction, all of which makes driving hassle-free reducing road rage to a large extent ensuring that you don’t fall a victim to the fury of other drivers, while you hurry towards an unexpected exit. While the Mio Spirit 480 and 485 boast of a 4.3 inch screen and are more pocket-friendly, the Spirit 685 and 687 boast of a 5-inch display, with the Spirit 687 (our topic of discussion today) being the big brother of the line-up. It packs voice entry, Bluetooth, Google Local Search, MioMore Software and an AV port wherein a camera can be plugged for rear viewing. Its predecessor Mio Spirit V575 TV looked to be a decent Sat Nav, but proved to be an awful TV as Mio had tried to cram it too much in their attempt to fend off advances in the mobile phone apps.

It was only sometime back Mio amazed us with the Spirit 685 with its incredible price. It was kind of hard to believe £100 for a 5-inch screen equipped with RDS-TMC traffic and European maps. But the Spirit 687 Satellite Navigation System, in contrast looks to be more believable at a £150 loaded with a whole host of juicy features and even looks to be more stable than its cheaper mate. Looking fairly identical to its younger brother, there is just one physical difference that sets the Spirit 687 apart, its AV input jack at the bottom, which is intended primarily to connect a rear-facing camera, thus making your reversing task easier. Also, the supplied cable proves to be a double purpose accessory as it sports a regular stereo RCA audio and composite video inputs making it easy for hooking this up with any video source like a DVD player (portable) if you are looking at entertaining people once have reached your destination. Akin to the 685, the 5-inch screen comes with a resolution of 480 x 272, which though adequate, cannot be matched with the high-end models, fairly limiting it for video purpose. Also the 687’s memory is twice the capacity– 4GB as against the 2GB of the 685’s. While both pack around 44 European countries maps, the 685 has just 23 maps preinstalled and if you are looking at installing extra from the DVD then you might have to delete the existing ones to make way for the new ones. On the contrary, the 687 has all 44 countries maps stored right out of the box. So having had enough insight on the Spirit lineup, let us move on to see what the Spirit 687 has in store for us.

In The Box

• Mio Spirit 687
• AV Lead
• Windscreen mount
• Power lead
• Quick start guide
• MioMore software
• DVD for Maps installation (Windows only)

Mio Spirit 687 Sat Nav Features

• 5-inch resistive widescreen
• IQ Routes
• Choice of Routes
• LearnMe Pro
• Voice Entry
• MioMore Services
• Stay Ahead of Traffic
• Hands-free calling with Incorporated Bluetooth
• A Novel approach to junctions and lanes
• Parking Assistance
• Go that Extra Mile even on Foot
• Ease of use
• Trip Planner
• Go With A Guide
• AV-in Port
• Find Stuff More Easily
• Know Your Limits
• QuickSpell Keyboard
• Latest Map Guarantee
• Rental Maps

Getting Started/First Impressions

Upon turning the device on first, you will have to activate the relevant maps, which is plain and straightforward – simply key in the code at the side of the box for it to reboot along with activating relevant maps. First things first, upon turning On the Mio Spirit 687 GPS Sat Nav System, the first thing that catches your eye is its huge 5-inch resistive touchscreen. Evidently a large screen would mean it requires a lot of real estate.  While the device sure does seem fairly solid, it also unfortunately gives out a plastic-y feel, though not cheap. Being 14 cm wide, the Spirit 687 isn’t the kind of device that is going to easily slide out, irrespective of its weight of 185 g and 17-mm thin.  The exterior looks great, but for the glossy finish of the dubious plastic, as already mentioned. Well, if it makes you feel any better, the matte finish of the 5-inch screen comes to your rescue in diverting your attention. It looks bright and boasts of a decent contrast together with good viewing angles. The quality of the display is brilliant too with a neat touch-sensitive performance.  Then again, owing to its resistive touchscreen, it can register taps one at a time and at a single area only; yes you guessed it right – Adios multitouch.

Moving on to the suction mount, it is a conventional mount that clings well to the windscreen, but there seems to be a problem when it comes to the connection between the stand and the device, particularly when you attempt gliding the unit out. Adjusting the angle gets painful with jerky movements and removing the unit from its mount is nothing far from impossible and you might have to fully remove the unit and the mount from the windscreen if you wish to do so. Setting up the unit also can really get tiresome owing to the poor quality of the mount. Though there is a neat little hook attached to the mount that keeps the cables nice and tidy, attaching the unit to the mount is kind of tricky. Nevertheless, once you have it fixed, it is a real joy to be used as a Sat Nav with bright chunky menus and the settings easy to both understand and navigate. Again, getting your mobile connected via the Bluetooth is a literal cakewalk. Having done that you can download your phonebook to aide in quick calling too. Of note, the Spirit 687 lacks a microSD card slot and Mio seems to have confirmed this, so all of the European maps come stored in the 4GB internal memory.

There seems to be issues with the power lead too, which though gives an angled look gives an impression that it might plug out any minute. The connector that is attached with a heavy cable is quite huge and looks to exert quite a strain on the connector. The cable hook does alleviate a bit. The power adaptor is massive too and might pose a problem to the power supplies adjacent to it in case you plan on using a multi-socket adaptor.  The connection to the cigarette lighter is fairly big too.

Coming to the touchscreen, there is a physical power button on the crest together with two hardware buttons in the front. While the button at the top gets you to the main menu, the one at the bottom helps with adding POIs and favourites. On the front, there are two buttons detached from the touchscreen which pops up the main menu or identifies your current location. Quite a nice touch actually, making the unit more user-friendly than the ones that rely solely on the touchscreen for navigating the menu.  Interestingly, the power switch has 3 positions – On, Off and Reset.

Getting to the speakers, well it is just matter of time before the speaker starts sounding saturated and unfortunately there seems to be no sign of an FM transmitter that could have alleviated the problem by channeling the audio via the vehicle’s radio.

User Interface: Simple and Smart

It is the same old QuickStart Software that is ticking below this Mio Spirit 687 Sat Nav Device that has helped Mio’s Sat Nav’s for quite sometime now. The Menus are legible and incredibly kept simple. Towards the left of the screen are two shortcut keys, one taking users to the main menu and the other adds the current location to the list of POIs, as mentioned above. The main menu takes the form of blocks with the two main menus being Find and Map and then there is My Places, Settings, Phone as well as an icon that directs you to the subsequent menu options.

Then you have the second screen featuring Traffic, Explore, Route Simulation, Trip Planner, Travel Book, Roadside Assistant and Voice Command. The last and the final screen featuring MioMore, Google Local Search, Home, AV and Near Me. While typing out an address, the characters eventually turn grey if there is no potential match found. You are also allowed to lookup for POIs or identify locations in a map. Regardless of the fact that the Mio Spirit 687 is devoid of any online services, googling is still an option, provided you have a mobile with an internet connection that can be connected via Bluetooth to get it to work.

Selecting a Destination (Standard)

Well, when it comes to choosing a destination, it is pretty much straightforward, press Find from the main menu wherein you are offered the following choice: By Address, Keyword, Area/City, Intersection, Coordinates, POIs, Postcode and Recent Locations. Mio utilizes a smart system when it comes to entering postcodes and addresses, for instance, you cannot press a letter on the keyboard if it is not available. In other words, if you are looking at typing Chester or Carlisle then you will not be allowed to press characters such as X or Y since both are not there in the above cities. Now entering postcodes seem to be kind of annoying owing to the following issue. Generally we find the address by either googling for the postcode of the house’s number or get it from a friend and not really be bothered with the entire address. Because generally postcodes should be more than enough as they always refer to a particular road. Well, Mio begs to differ here. Upon entering a postcode, the unit displays 3 other street names, which makes you think it might be the adjacent streets, just in case you decide to change your destination. But guess that is not the case, the street names get displayed in an alphabetical order. This is rather bizarre as it makes the feature useless. Why would someone have to choose from 3 or 5 street listings when they have clearly stated the street that they are looking for by keying in the 7-digit postcode. Highly ridiculous Mio! So moving further, guess you might have to find the house number from the inmates of the house so that it can be entered confirming the final destination. Again, the destination screen comes up with the options of Explore/Save/Go. Explore pops up a map, just in case you want to try another location, all you need to do is simply tap on it. Save includes the address to the My Locations folder and upon pressing the same it moves on to the Edit screen allowing you to Save/Rename or Delete the same.

If you wish to have routing options simply press ‘Go’. A strong positive of the Spirit 687 is the incorporation of IQ Routes, that aids with Fastest route. The rest of the route options would include Easiest, Economical and Shortest. Tap on one of the above options and watch the screen show an overlay of the selected route and just press Go from there. Again, if you had chosen Easiest for a particular trip, then that becomes you pre-selected option for your next trip on the routing screen.

Entering Coordinates are a real fab in this Spirit 687. While other Sat Nav’s require you to choose the format that you are going to be utilising either in the Settings Menu or prior to keying in the coordinates, the Spirit 687 just requires you to start typing while it uses its smart keyboard. For instance, if you start keying in ‘42.’ then just the number option is available. Whereas if you commence with a ‘42o’ and type another number, then together with numbers being available you see both the minutes {‘} and the seconds {“} being available. If you are wondering about the negative sign, well negatives have to be keyed in by hitting the E/W or the N/S button. It sure is a fairly user-friendly input for coordinate seen till date.

Here comes the most tricky feature ‘Points of Interes’t, as the data’s accuracy is always a chief bone of contention. It has generally been bad with majority of the Sat Nav’s. But then, looks like the Mio has handled this well too. After you have decided on the POI, you can select from In City/Area, Nearby, Near Destination or Along Route (with the last two being inactive unless you have a route set). After which you get to choose By Type, By Name or any one of the 6 shortcuts that is preset – Parking, Food, Hotels & Motels, Petrol, SOS and Cash. Sadly, the database filter happens at a painful slow pace and oh yeah, don’t bother pressing the back arrow key often, as nothing really happens until the unit is done with its current search. Again, “By Type” gives you a listing of all Places of Interest including the ones added by you (More on this later). Upon choosing a POI, you get prompted to the same screen of Explore, Save and Go, but now with an extra option called the POI, which indeed requires that you connect your phone through the Bluetooth. The option shows up regardless of you being connected to a phone, but then pressing it prompts you that you are not connected to a phone and takes you through a setup, if need be. A neat touch, isn’t it, saves you the trouble of canceling whatever you are up to, to get to the main setting. Finally, with the Near Me option on the third menu page you are allowed to use the same set of preset POI list as mentioned above (Parking, Food etc).

Selecting a Destination (Advanced)

There are two additional Advanced options that the Spirit 687 Sat Nav System offers in terms of selecting a destination. You might not find it in the standard Find menu though and in fact are located on the second menu screen. Trip Planner comes in handy with multipoint routing and works fairly well. It uses your current location as the default start point, note this cannot be changed, you will have simply choose “Add” to add all points that you require. Edit allows optimization of the route, while retaining the same final destination, delete or renaming the route. Yet another handy option would be the “Return to start” that generally seems to miss from majority of multipoint routing setup.

The second ‘advanced’ option would be the Voice Command, which works alright, but nothing in comparison to Garmin. You get to the hands-free input method with three key presses Menu-Down-Voice Command. But beware it has to be done in a really quiet backdrop as any slight noise can throw it off. Again, there real are no confirmations when you attempt voicing out addresses until the very end, meaning you have absolutely no idea if the unit registered your command correctly or not.

Navigation/Map Screen

The default colour scheme of the map is primarily white and grey with your route being highlighted in green. Though it might seem kind of weird initially, eventually you get used to this colour scheme, particularly when you need to take a quick glance at where you are being taken. On the flip side, it is kind of hard to take a quick glance at side roads that you are supposed to turn or drive past. Also the selection of map themes from Mio looks to be a real fab, more typically British-like that you get to see on paper maps.

The bar at the top prompts your next manoeuvre as well as the distance to it and the road that you might have to turn into. The user selectable area is on the top right and tapping it exhibits the Time to Go (TTG), Distance To Go (DTG), ETA, Speed & Direction with the current time. Selecting one of the above shuts down the list, displaying just the selected option in a corner and the full list can obviously be left on the display.

Towards the bottom left of the screen is where you get to see your current speed, which is fairly large and cannot really be missed. It remains semi-transparent so far as you respect it and gets opaque and fairly visible if you cross the limit – a nice constant reminder to keep a tab on your speed limit. It doesn’t really prove disturbing while you still get to view the map through it. Routing is fairly sensible with rational ETA’s.

You are allowed to access the zoom controls on the screen in two possible ways. One would be to run your fingers on the map with the +/- symbols appearing towards the right side. Well, this would practically stop tracking your location and doesn’t really do any good with navigation isn’t it? Again tapping the map instead of moving around it directs you to a screen called Map Options with a button to turn the zoom level On. Tapping twice just to access the zoom controls doesn’t sound to be feasible idea, particularly when you are looking at doing stuff in a jiffy, especially while driving. Well, on the flip side having a permanent button for zoom in/out is no less dangerous than having an AM/FM in the car stereo for the radio to be switched.

So moving on to the rest of options in the Map’s screen, which would include Detour, Volume, Add/Skip Waypoint, Route, Cancel Route and Routing Options. As the above options are pretty much self-explanatory, lets make this short and sweet. Route further branches out into three sub-views: the information screen with distance traveled and ETA etc, the route’s map overview along with a turn-by-turn info. Detour lets you to hop 1, 2, 5, 10 or even 20 miles of your route, with the exception of specific roads. While you use the Up/Down arrow keys in the information screen for scrolling up and down the screen, you will have to Push/Pull the screen when it comes to turn-by-turn option for scrolling up and down, akin to the latest Smartphones or even use the arrows. Something not many users might approve of owing to the inconsistency. Route Options comes in handy with choosing the road types together with toggling couple of other settings like Landmark Guidance, Mileage Recorder and Custom POI alerts. There is also this V-Traffic TMC system that comes in handy with detecting mess traffic jams on busy roads and motorways.  Well, though not really as accurate as TomTom’s HD Traffic, it sure does prove to be of big help on busy weekends, despite you being dubious about finding other roads that give you the pleasure of smoother rides. Last but not least would be the Truck Mode, which is a boon is disguise for with people with caravans or HGV drivers. Though the manufacturer doesn’t really promise a 100% guarantee, they sure do try and stay away from routes banned to HGVs or that has low bridges. While the service is offered free up to a month, you might have to paying an annual subscription for continuing with the same.

Extras

The Spirit 687 Sat Nav System allows using your mobile’s data connection via Bluetooth thus giving access to MioMore and Google’s Local Search. Needless to say Bluetooth comes in handy with hands-free calling too. Audio quality also seems fairly adequate with no evident dropouts. During a call there is a green status bar flashing beside the screen top, which upon being tapped directs you back to the full information screen. Also on board is a 3.5-mm AV input jack, if in case you are looking at adding video feeds to the unit. You can choose to either watch videos or get realistic and have a reversing camera fed into the Spirit 687. Well, this isn’t really user-friendly anyways as you will have to navigate the menu for this to be displayed, by which time you would have parked and long gone. On the flip side, a better and useful option would be to swap to the AV input upon receiving a signal, for example turning on the reverse camera’s feed with the reverse gear being engaged.

MioMore

So, that is it about the device and now let us get on with some miscellaneous stuff like the MioMore Software etc. To begin with, it is a Windows only software. Secondly, it has to be connected through an USB, that doesn’t come as a part of the package. It would have much helpful if Mio had included an USB lead in place of the AV lead, which we feel is of not much use to many of us out there!

It becomes easier managing your subscriptions within MioMore, like for instance Mio’s very own database for speed camera, manage the existing maps, procure additional maps, search/upload geotagged photos, manage trips, upload custom POIs, manage trips or rearrange menus.

Trip management comes in handy with business drivers or for someone who is simply keen on knowing routes they have driven. Trips can both be exported and viewed for chosen dates along with calculating rough fuel usage too.

Yet another interesting feature of MioMore is the Application Gallery. Though not very self-explanatory, each menu options have been grouped as an App. The gallery allows for removing, rearranging and adding menu items.

Verdict

By and large, the Mio Spirit 687 doesn’t really prove to be an impressive device. While it boasts of some plus points like ease of use, multipoint routing, big screen with customisable menu etc., we cannot deny the fact that it has too many downsides to be ignored. For instance, the map freezing every now and then making it unfeasible, not so impressive text-to-speech and the voice input that needs more refinement. On the flip side, it might be appropriate for users who are not keen on comparing it with the looks and feel of Navigon and are more keen on treating it as a simple value for money unit. It would suit a novice who doesn’t really care about sophisticated looks or features and treats it just as a pocket-friendly Sat Nav, which is good at doing what it is designed to do – Navigate!

We Liked

• Ease of use
• Clear-Cut Interface
• Attractive 5-inch Widescreen display
• Truck Mode
• Choice of 4 different routes for each itinerary

We Disliked

• The ordinary design
• Map freezing sporadically

Mio Spirit 687 Sat Nav – Technical Specification Table

Manufacturer	Mio
Model Name	Mio Spirit 687 Sat Nav
Navigator Type	Portable
Dimensions	88.5 (H) x 142 (W) x 17.5 (D)
Weight	185g
Antenna	Built-in
Display	Touch screen
Display screen size	12.7 cm (5-inch)
Display resolution	480 x 272 pixels
Colour display	Yes
Orientation	Landscape
Memory type	Internal Ram Memory:128MB SDRAM Internal ROM Memory: 4GB Memory Card: No
Processor Type	Samsung 6443
Clock Speed	400 Mhz
Navigation Hardware	SiRF star III with InstantFixII GPS Channels:20 TMC: Yes External Antenna: No
Processor	Samsung 2450/400 MHz
GPS Module	SiRFstarIII with InstantFixII
Additional features	Choice of Routes IQ Routes Voice Entry Hands-free calling with in-built Bluetooth LearnMe Pro MioMore Services Parking Assistance Go even further on Foot Go with a guide Trip Planner QuickSpell keyboard Rental Maps
Included Accessories	Windscreen Mounting Bracket Car charger with integrated TMC antenna Software DVD to restore your apps and software Optional Accessories Leather Carry case AC Charger
Audio (Input & Output)	Speaker: Built-in, Mono Microphone: No Earphone Jack: No
Battery type	Rechargeable integrated Li-ION battery
Battery Capacity	720mAh Replaceable: No, Built-in
Warranty	One year