Ok maybe I haven�t been too impressed with the latest innovations in the Pocket PC realm over the past 12 months and sarcasm aside this has created a stagnant pool of product choices.  Then Mitac comes along; a little-known manufacturer from Asia. I should say that they are little known in North America however Mitac has a large presence in Asia and Europe with annual revenue over 5 billion dollars. They manufacture PDA�s, Laptops, and cell phones just to name a few.

When Mitac contacted me about their new product, the Mio 168 I had truly thought that this might be the breakout product I had been searching for, a device that defied all others in the realm of innovation and thinking outside the PDA, in contrast to the regular Vanilla and Neapolitan Pocket PC�s that littered the countertops of computer retailers in the US.

Let take a quick look at the specs of Mitac�s Mio 168 Pocket PC.

Processor: Intel Xscale � 300 MHZ
Operating System: Microsoft� Mobile 2003
Display Screen: 3.5” TFT LCD Panel, resolution 240 x 320, 65K Color
Memory: 32 MB ROM, 64 MB SDRAM
Expansion Slot: SD/MMC Built-in GPS Receiver
Dimensions: 112.8mm (Length) x 69.6mm (Width) x 16.3~24.15mm (Height)
Weight: 147g

We see the usual suspects here with the Xscale, standard screen, memory, etc until we come to the built in GPS Receiver, there it was and innovative idea that stuck its tongue out at conventional PDA thinking and edifying the fact that PDA�s are portable so why not build a GPS into them�brilliant. The size is svelte at only 4.45 inches long, 2.75 inches wide and .64 inches thick as well as weighing in at only 147 grams or about 5 ounces.

While initially enamored with the device I discovered it was not with out its own limitations. Here was quite possibly the quintessential PDA I had been looking but if not for its shortcomings. Aside from IR (infrared) the unit lacks any wireless connectivity, no Bluetooth or WiFi. This is where I eat a large helping of crow for poking fun at the dual slot devices I mused about earlier. For if this unit had a dual slot design, ideally dual SD/SDIO the lack of built in wireless would be but a footnote in this review. I feel it is an absolute necessity to maintain a free and open SD slot for document, music, movie and other portable data storage and not be forced to swap back and forth between your data and an expansion card such as a WiFi card.

The limitation of the lack of built in wireless aside the Mio 168 really does shine. The screen is bright; the OS is responsive under the 300 MHz engine and the 64 Megs of ram proves to provide an ample amount for storage of maps and other programs.  The built in speaker was plenty loud to hear the turn by turn directions of the GPS software. I was able to use the unit as an in car entertainment system with the help of an RF transmitter I bought as Fry�s to broadcast my MP3�s to my car stereo. Mitac thoughtfully included a car mounting kit that provides a clean and neat way to mount the device and provide it with power. Now I was set up with navigation and portable music in one slim and light unit.

Mitac includes a bevy of additional programs and utilities. eBackup allows you to back up and restore your programs to an SD card,  eMenu is a dashboard type of program not to unlike SPB�s Pocket Plus albeit much more limited. E-Viewer offers some interesting features for viewing your pictures and making limited edits to them however I became quickly frustrated with its lack of features. They include a nice MP3 player with the device that has an equalizer and the ability to turn off the screen while playing music.

Probably the most useful of all the built in programs and utilities aside from the GPS software was the Mio Utility. Mio Utility has a series of tabs that allow you to tweak various aspects of the system and GPS. On the Smart Battery tab your can select from Auto, Low Performance, High Performance, and Superior Performance. I found that if you wanted to play music and use the GPS you needed to set the device to High or Superior performance essentially turning off of the battery optimization and affording you the power required to run two very CPU intensive applications.  Additionally there are device wake up settings and GPS settings that the tool allows you to tweak.

I am not going to go into much detail of the GPS software as they use a licensed version of Destinator 3 from [url=http://www.Destinator1.com]http://www.Destinator1.com[/url] using maps and Points of Interest from NAVTECH. There are many reviews of this very capable GPS software. I should mention that the built in GPS uses a SiRF chipset and supports the NMEA protocol so you should have no trouble using other GPS software with it. I found Desinator 3 to be a very capable application taking me to my destinations almost always right on target. I say almost always as sometimes it did not direct me right into the parking lot of some locations due to there being no entry on the street that it brought me in on. This is a common issue with many location based GPS tools. The device is capable of WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) bringing you accuracy to under 3 meters however this feature was not available in the unit I tested. Aside from that I found it to be very accurate. The GPS was at times slow to get a lock on the satellites but after the lock was established it did very well, even on roads with many overpasses. You can attach an optional external antenna to the device for better signal acquisition.

One of the features of the GPS I enjoyed was the voice navigation. I found myself selecting my home address as the destination when heading home. I thought voice navigation would be a nuisance at first but it was nice to hear a voice directing me home late at night, sort of like my car was talking to me. I actually miss not having that in my other vehicle when I drive. When driving to one of my other editors house the software took me a direction that I had not considered before that turned out to be more efficient. The more I used the mapping software the more dependent I became on its guidance. You can select Points of Interest such as gas stations of your choice, ATM�s, bus stations, etc. This was a cool feature as I could with a glance find a Union 76 station off of the freeway that I would never have know existed. My Mini only gets Union 76 Premium fuel and now I can spot them literally miles away. Same goes for Thai restaurants and every Winery in the area; I was surprised at how many wineries there are in the Seattle Metro area. It turns out Pacific Northwesters not only like our Micro Brews and Coffee but Wine as well.

Lets take a look at some benchmarks to how this device performance against a couple of competitors.

There you have it, beauty and brains in a small package. The Mio 168 outperforms the comparably equipped Toshiba e400 with the same CPU and keeps pace with the faster equipped HP iPAQ 2215 in many tests. Priced at $499 it puts it in the middle of the pack for price and performance but with the innovative edge of having built in GPS.

Pros:
Innovative features
Size
Performance

Cons:
Lack of built in wireless
Included cable not sync-n-charge

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

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