Mio 685 sat-nav

June 2011

Price: £99.99

The new Mio Spirit 685 has an impressive five-inch touchscreen and allows you to pick between the fastest, shortest, easiest or most economical journey.

The menus are colourful and clear, but the display isn’t the most responsive. However, it’s easy to use, helped by the large buttons on the side. Unlike rivals, though, the Spirit does not offer full postcode entry – you can only input the first few characters before you’re prompted to enter the street name and house number.

Once we’d selected our 20-mile test route, the unit took 60 seconds to calculate it – rival Navigon’s MyRoutes technology works faster, and over time stores your preferences, too. But on the road, the Mio was quick to detect a wrong turn, and provided new directions in seven seconds.

The other feature we liked was the button to the top left of the display that takes you back to the main menu. Yet despite an attractive £100 price, this sat-nav is let down by the fact it does without live traffic notifications.