sumrtym said:3. The unit does not do text to speech. The cheapest unit on the market with that feature as well as traffic recieving is the Garmin unit that will be at Circuit City for $350, a significant discount over normal.Actually the Teletype 3100 Deluxe unit for $249 (after coupon, plus ship) has text-to-speech, but not the traffic part. This is a significant discount from Garmin's $350

What's the deal with map updates for this unit? Are they free? For how long? How often do they update the maps?

I didn't see anything about that on the miogps site.

What are the real odds of getting one of these for $150 on BF at either Circuit City, Staples or CompUSA (Thur in this case)? We going to have to be there hours before the store opens to get in on this?

LexLuthor said:What are the real odds of getting one of these for $150 on BF at either Circuit City, Staples or CompUSA (Thur in this case)? We going to have to be there hours before the store opens to get in on this?

Staples would be the best bet in my area, if it is in fact the 310x (not sure how that was confirmed, it doesn't state that in the ad). CUSA and CC are both located in a mall, which will be a nightmare.

Obviously, as with most PM's, it is YMMV, but it is likely that CompUSA will PM on BF sales?

I hadnt seen that anywhere, expcept in sumrtym's "Lets clarify" post, but I am a novice at BF/PM/PA. Will they do it on Thursday night even if the CC and Staples are for Friday sales? If so, that would be perfect since we could know if it was a done deal before real BF even starts.

I have one from CC that I am going to try to Price Adjust, but I am still not completely sure that that will work. Between CompUSA possibly PM on Thursday, getting to CC early enough to buy one, or the PA, I am hopefully going to have at least one unit at this price. If I could get a second as a gift, it would be perfect.

I seriously doubt that CompUSA would pricematch a sale that hasn't started yet. The guy who runs GPSLodge confirmed with CompUSA that on the morning of BF they will pricematch Staples / CC. Personally, knowing how manager's of stores differ, I suggest you check this out ahead of time with the manager of your local store as I suggested earlier.

Currently, I have a list of 10 questions into Mio sales service regarding this unit. Hopefully I'll get a reply by early next week and if so I'll post it. If I don't by Tuesday morning, I'll actually call them.

BTW, regarding pricematching on BF, most places will never do it. The major exception to this rule is Wal-Mart. As long as you're in the doorbuster advertised time for the competing store, Wal-Mart will pricematch any competing local BF ad. I've used them more than once to avoid a rush at another store for a hot deal that year (most notably one that would have required me to be at a toy store at 3 in the morning) that allowed me to comfortably purchase at Wal-Mart with no hassle at 8:00. Similarly, they are useful if they carry the item and the place advertising is out of stock as I've never had Wal-Mart call to check availability (unlike other days then BF at Best Buy, Circuit City, etc.), especially ON Black Friday. I did get shot down in the electronics dept pricemathing a DVD box set to the Target ad 2 years ago, but going to the front of the store, they did the pricematch there no problem.

Unless there has been a significant change in the last 2 years to Wal-Mart policy, plan on the ability to pricematch any BF ad at Wal-Mart if need be.

sumrtym said:BTW, regarding pricematching on BF, most places will never do it.
I'll agree with you on the PM for BF, but there should not be a problem with a return/rebuy to take advantage of a store's own sale.

BTW, if you buy early, make sure you don't play with your toy before BF. CC has a 15% re-stocking fee for opened GPSes (and some other electronics categories too).

LexLuthor said:sumrtym, interesting point on WalMart, but doesn't look like they carry this unit.

If you do correspond with Mio, maybe you can find out how the add on traffic module works. Where do you get it? How much cost to buy? Monthly?

Also, generally the BF deals are low stocked, no margin deals to get people in the door. In this case, since so many stores have this same item in their "door buster" sale, I wonder if Mio is backing this so as a quick way to build market share/name recognition and maybe the stores will be stocked well with this.
I quoted Wal-Mart as general information. I planned to use them to pricematch any Battlestar Galactica box set deals this year (of which I've found zero). Usually, if I hit 2 stores, I can't get what I want at both if they are both doorbuster items. Wal-Mart has solved this nicely for me in the past.

I agree on Mio backing this. They're not well known in the U.S., the U.S. website is severely lacking in product demonstration, upgrade files, etc. They are more known in Europe having spread there from Asia.

I did not ask about the traffic module. I'm sure it's probably a yearly subscription price as that's the norm on those units. I was interested in some more usability questions of the unit (MP3 capable DURING navigation or not, situational regarding display / voice announcemnets, general navigation questions related to pedistrian mode, directional software and mapping software expandibility offerings and upgrades, etc.).

crossgar said:If the Staples unit is a C310 can it "easily" be upgraded to C310x with the iGo software?
All 3 stores are the C310x.

Although irrelevant given the above, upgrading the C310 to C310x (which is only software as a difference) is impossible without hacking an unlock of the unit, you having a copy of the software to do a complete install, et cetera. Hacking of a GPS in this manner to unlock it may cause problems requiring a complete reinstall of windows CE if/when things go bad.

sumrtym said:crossgar said:If the Staples unit is a C310 can it "easily" be upgraded to C310x with the iGo software?
All 3 stores are the C310x.

Although irrelevant given the above, upgrading the C310 to C310x (which is only software as a difference) is impossible without hacking an unlock of the unit, you having a copy of the software to do a complete install, et cetera. Hacking of a GPS in this manner to unlock it may cause problems requiring a complete reinstall of windows CE if/when things go bad.

u could install tomtom on this device. read http://www.gpspassion.com/forumsen/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=71114.

" I have a "No installation" method for TT6 on CE 4.2 PNA, at least it worked for Mio C310x.

On your SD card, create a TomTom directory, put data.chk(originally in tomtom directory), TomTom Navigator.exe, Voices directory under it. Put all your map directories under the root directory. These are all you need to run TT6.

Run TomTom Navigator directly, after you've selected language and voice, TTN gives you error message "No Maps Found".

What can you do?

Easy! Use a registry editor, go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
--> EXPLORER
--> SHELL FOLDERS
--> My Document

Change its value to the name of SD card, "\\Storage Card", in my case.

Next, TomTom needs to know your GPS device. For C310x, it's
Other NMEA GPS receiver
GPS Baud Rate 4800
GPS serial COM2:

Done!"