Overall design features

Since it's a part of the Moov series, the Moov 500 shares the same attractive design with the other various models from this series. While “sleek” and “elegant” are the first two things that come to mind, some might view them as rather cliche, so we'll just say that the Moov 500 looks a lot better than most other PNDs retailing for the same price.

In fact, before opening the box, we were wondering just what Mio had to do in order to cut costs to such a level, but whatever it did, it had nothing to do with the design or the materials used within the Moov 500. Hence, the quality of the finishing and of the plastic is a very good one, and the same goes for all the accessories included in the sales package.

Size and portability

Another major surprise we encountered when first holding up the Moov 500 was related to just how lightweight this thing is. Of course, as far as the dimensions are concerned, there weren't any major surprises (after all, we're talking about a device equipped with a 4.7-inch display), the PND measuring 139 x 83.8 x 17.7 mm.

However, much to the surprise of every person who held it, the Moov 500 is extremely lightweight, weighing just less than 200 grams, battery included. This is indeed an impressive achievement, but it's most likely caused by the fact that Mio has kept the hardware configuration at a very basic level, so there are no additional components to increase the overall weight.

In other words, if you're tired of driving and you want to move around a bit using nothing but your feet, you can easily take the Moov 500 along with you, without really feeling the extra “burden.”

Button and slot placement

Like most other PNDs that rely mainly on their touchscreen display for control purposes, the Mio Moov 500 doesn't have that many buttons. In fact, there's just one main button, the Power switch, which is located right on top of the GPS navigator. And yes, there's also the reset button, but that's more of a slot than anything else.

The device sports an SD/MMC card slot, located on the top side (near the power button), plus a mini-USB power connector (also used for hooking up the navigator to a computer), which can be found on the bottom side of the PND. There's a “groove” on the rear side, which is in fact used for sliding the Moov 500 onto the windshield mount.

Connectivity options

Not much to talk about here. Aside from the SD/MMC card slot and USB interfaces (which we've already mentioned above), there's not much to add. The Mio Moov 500 doesn't have any audio or video outputs, and absolutely no hidden connectivity interfaces – apart from the internal antenna used for “tapping” into the satellite's signal.