ok, they could flag the language off and still leave it there, would be unusual though
After, a 1 hr browse through a copy of most of the code, and although it did'nt de-compile brilliantly, it did it sufficiently for me to be 99.99% certain it did indeed support English language, so based on that I figured it was worth a gamble.
I'm pleased to say it flashed okay, and guess what, it came up in English by default, it seems to support quite a lot of language options including French, German, Russian etc.. Bit surprised it came up right away in English though. (I assume it noted current settings before updating) I had counted how many clicks of the buttons to get to the language options in case it came up in Russian..lol. Firmware version was v2.00.01.7 the update from the Russian Mio site is now v2.01.04, and I noticed when WDR is now enabled on quick test it seems to have much more contrast, and that image noise I mentioned seems to have pretty much disappeared when WDR is enabled, so first impressions are indicating it was definately worth updating it.
EDIT: I've since noticed that the bitrate has increased from 13000kbps to just over 14000kbps, so thats also good, mind you the image quality was pretty good before.
I could'nt see any mention of Mio cams on that last link, but the 1st link I put up does have most of the popular dash cameras including a Mio forum on which 'Mio Russia' techs appear to have a presence.
Thats how I knew what chipset it used. ;-)
Thanks for your help joklin... very much appreciated, looks like my initial fears were totally unwarranted... but better safe than sorry...lol