canceleer's Full Review: Lowrance iWAY 350C Car GPS Receiver
I have positive experience with Lowrance marine products and purchased the iWay 350C expecting that same level of satisfaction. Not so.
Two significant problems became immediately apparent. As I travel in rural areas and metropolitan areas I have found major directional errors in Alabama and in Orange County (CA). Errors occur frequently and are, obviously, frustrating.
The second problem is the touch screen. I do not know if it is a hardware, software or combination of the two problems that causes the screen entry to be slow and inaccurate. The manual cautions that the 350's response may be slow. That is a gross understatement. When using the screen keyboard to enter data, the system often just misses entered data. Needless to say this is irritating and time consuming.
I just downloaded update 1.2. Whoever wrote the download process did not do a very good job. After working my way through it and getting the 350 operational I discovered that two features (auto zoom disable and GPS status) have been deleted. Nothing on the site mentioned this and the manual has not been updated. The GPS is set up to change the scale on the screen automatically and the speed changes. I do not want this and choose to disable the auto zoom. Now, it appears that I can no longer do this. The GPS status told me how many satellites I was receiving and whether or not I was using WAAS. Now, I no longer have that information.
What I do have is a GPS that now has voice commands in a bunch of different languages. If I had to guess, I would say that the addition of numerous languages and whatever other changes Lowrance made exceeded the allowable space on the 4GB hard drive and Lowrance had to eliminate operating features in order to accommodate additional languages in order to increase sales.
Since the update, I have not tested the GPS for directional errors - time will tell.
I am not a satisfied user. Technically, the GPS is poor. Lowrance treats it first as a music and picture player and last as a GPS. Support is poor and updates unacceptable.
Buy a Garmin or spend the money on a 5 year AAA membership and get correct maps, excellent support and towing.
Update: March 14, 2007
I did receive criticism about my comments concerning the software Lowrance uses. One reader told me that it was the software provider's fault that Lowrance was not using the most current software. Found that interesting.
Lowrance released another software update (1.4). It installed smoothly. No information from Lowrance about what the update provided. The unit failed about seven days later - appears the hard drive failed.
Lowrance replaced the unit under warranty in about seven days. The customer service rep noted that he had a bunch of failed units on his desk that were only good as door stops. Seems to be a common problem.
Took the unit to Alaska for a two week trip. The maps and directions seemed to be correct, although there were a couple of instances between Wasilla and Willow that were questionable.
DO NOT let the unit get cold. A couple of times when I left the unit in the car during the day, it got cold and I received the same message I got when the hard drive failed the first time. I immediately shut it down and allowed it to warm up. Once warm, it worked as usual. The message is that in cold climates, this is not a unit for you as the hard drive will either freeze or slow to the point of failure.
Built-in,NAVTEQ Turn-by-Turn Database for U.S. and Canada with over 5 million Points-Of-Interest with Audio and Visual Cues, 4GB HDD and FM ModulatorMore at eCOST.com
Brilliant, rugged, sunlight-viewable TFT color display Easily installs on most any dash in seconds touch-screen menus ; Turn-by-turn routing with voic...More at Amazon Marketplace
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