chdyoung's Full Review: Lowrance iFINDER Plus Handheld GPS Receiver
An excellent value for the money. An ideal hand held GPS receiver for hunting, fishing, or finding your way on the road. The IFinder does almost anything you could want a GPS unit to do. The Lowrance Ifinder H2O seems to be a waterproof version of the IFinder Pro. The H2O is reviewed here. If you buy the plus version you get mapping software bundled with the GPS receiver.
If you are buying this for someone who does not have a computer or only needs detailed maps for a certain part of the U.S., you can purchase memory cards with detailed maps preloaded.
The IFinder by itself is useful for navigating interstates, highways and main roads. Major roads and even small towns are preloaded in the IFinder which shows many small towns and communities, but not the roads that lead to them. Points of interest along major roads are included even without the optional detailed maps. These include gas stations, truck stops, restaurants, and hotels.
What doesn't it do? It does not talk to you or figure out driving directions. It only shows the correct direction as you move -- it is not a compass. It does not have a battery charger built in -- if you use rechargeable batteries, you have to take them out to charge them. All that is to be expected in a unit in this price range.
The IFinder is much larger than most cell phones, and several other GPS receivers. It is comfortable to hold, but too bulky for most pockets. The large black and white screen is good for viewing detailed maps. The screen is viewable in direct sunlight. There is a good backlight which can be adjusted from very bright to very dim. Leaving the light on drains the batteries faster.
Waterproof? Yes, it seems to be waterproof. There are rubber boots for the external antenna connector at the top and the power / data connector at the bottom. If these are pulled loose and replaced very many times, it looks to me like they might not remain waterproof. The battery compartment looks like it should remain waterproof for a good long time.
The IFinder does all the basic GPS functions and more. The Ifinder will show you where you are on the map, what direction you are moving, and how fast. Waypoints (land marks) are easy to add. There are several options which include setting a waypoint at your present location, or cursor to a place on the map to set a waypoint.
You can cursor around the map using the big oval button that has 4 direction arrows on it. You can move at 45 degree angles by pressing between the 4 direction buttons. You can zoom out to 4,000 miles or in to .02 miles with lots of zoom levels in between.
You can easily create a route by adding waypoints to the route. The Ifinder keeps track of where you have been (your trail). It is easy to get back to your destination by following your trail back, or you can create a route from a trail. When you navigate a route, the IFinder knows when you have passed a waypoint, and starts showing distance and direction to the next waypoint.
The instruction manual is well written. There is a quick start section.
The basic GPS functions are easy, but some of the advanced features take some time to learn. There is an easy mode and advanced mode. If you are satisfied to stay with the easy stuff, then the learning process will be fast. Even the advanced features are well documented.
In advanced mode you can see more information and change what you see on the maps. There are 24 categories that can be turned on or off (viewed or not). Also there are 4 settings for map details which at the highest level shows a somewhat cluttered map at certain zoom ranges, and at the lowest level shows only trails, routes, and waypoints (if they are turned on).
In easy mode there is a map screen, compass rose screen, and satellite status screen. In advanced mode there is an additional screen that shows 8 user selected parameters. Each of the 8 boxes allows the user to select one of 27 different things such as speed, closing speed, distance, estimated arrival time, bearing, track, course, and others. The user can also add up to 8 of these information boxes to the map screen. Almost a third of the screen can be used by the information boxes leaving less room for the maps. However it is nice to be able to see certain things on the map screen without having to punch to another screen.
There are several ways to find places. You can find an address, an intersection, highway exits, airports, landmarks, points of interest (can be filtered by category), cities, countries, and others. Once you find the place, you can choose to look at it on the map (and set a waypoint if you want), or go to the place. When you go to a place, the distance and direction to that place are shown. You can easily find the straight-line distance between where you are and another place on the map, or find the distance between any two places. Distances are usually shown in miles, but small distances are shown in feet.
You can find places by "nearest" or "name". Scrolling to a nearby place is easy, but if you need to enter addresses or street names, it is a bit tedious. You have to roll through the letters of the alphabet or numbers, cursor right, and do it again. There is an auto complete function that sometimes makes this task easier. Actually you see a list of possible matches, and you can select from that list rather than having to enter the entire thing.
Default map orientation is north up, but you can change it to track up (you will always be moving toward the top of the map), or course up. In these modes an icon shows you which way north is.
You can save your info to the memory card in a file that you can name. This saves all your waypoints, routes, and trails in one file. You can then clear all that from the IFinder memory and start again. If you want your old info back, you just load it back from the memory card.
If you have detailed maps including elevation and the map is zoomed in enough to display the topo lines, then you can cursor to a blank place on the map and an elevation pop-up box will tell you the elevation at the cursor. If you zoom in far enough, you will see the topo lines labeled.
Sometimes when the IFinder is first turned on it acquires position (lock), but it may be wrong by as much as a tenth of a mile. If it is off, it looses position for a minute or so, then reacquires the correct position. IFinder works well in the front seat of cars, vans, and trucks. It also works in buildings with only a ceiling and composite shingle roof between it and the sky. It does not work inside metal buildings or if surrounded by tall buildings. I do not know if it works in the woods in the summer time - probably not. IFinder loses lock if it is too close to my computer even though it shows that it is receiving several satellites. Moving it a couple of feet away fixes that - must be some interference.
The map create software is great for creating maps, waypoints, and routes for the IFinder. However, it is not for showing you where you are on your computer screen. If you want to see where you are on a larger than 3 inch GPS screen, then you will need to buy other mapping software. The MapCreate software will not receive data in order to show you where you are on the map. You can buy a data cable that will allow the IFinder to send NEMA data to your computer so that your position will be displayed on your computer (running some other mapping software). That data cable is so expensive that you might be better off just buying the Delorme or Streets and Trips package that includes the little USB GPS receiver.
The plus version comes bundled with mapping software (6 CDs for U.S.), a memory card, card reader, and cigarette lighter power cord. The Lowrance web page says you get a 16 MB MMC card, but mine shipped with a 64 MB SD card (in October, 2005).
Unlike older units that require a slow connection from the computer to the receiver for transferring maps, the IFinder uses a MMC or SD card. You transfer maps from your computer to the card via a USB card reader that is included in the maps package. You then place the memory card in the receiver.
Map creation is fairly simple. The Map Create manual is well written. You draw rectangles around the areas you want to be included. You can also draw corridors along routes you will want, or if you have some routes loaded already you can have corridors along those routes created automatically. You can preview the file size before making the map. As the map is being created and saved to the memory card, a progress box tells you what is happening. You can include many different areas in one file by drawing many rectangles and / or corridors. Or if you want, you can have separate files for different areas. You would want to do separate files if you want all info for some areas, and want to leave out some categories for other areas. Files that have overlapping areas are not a problem, except you would be wasting memory card space with redundant information.
I have been using a 1 GB SD card. I saved all of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, the gulf coast, and the northern half of Florida and still only used less than half of the space on the card. I have been able to make a single map file as large as 400 MB. If you use the included 64 MB card you will be more limited in the areas you can include. You can choose which features to include in the maps. If you have a large enough card to hold the areas you are interested in, you can just include all features, and then turn them off or on in the IFinder. If you zoom out far enough, you will see boxes around the areas where there is detailed map info. You can only use up to 5 cards with Map Create, so do not use a small card if you may need a bigger one in the future. This is some kind of copyright protection that Lowrance says the map data providers insisted on. You have to use the supplied card reader even if your computer has a built in card reader. Again that has something to do with the copyright.
You can use the mapping software to create or edit waypoints and routes. You can also load trails, waypoints, and routes from the memory card. If you have a list of waypoints with coordinates, you can import them. The import function strips off the end of any long name, but you can edit the name in the GPS receiver after you have loaded it from the card. This seems to be a flaw in the import function. It is a lot harder to name a waypoint using the IFinder than using a computer keyboard. If I wanted to add only 1 or 2 waypoints for geocaching, I would probably just enter the info using the IFinder to avoid the hassle of taking the card out of the IFinder.
Finding addresses and streets is easy using the MapCreate software - easier than using the IFinder because it is easier to enter addresses and street names using a computer keyboard. However, MapCreate will not find things nearest the cursor as the IFinder will. If you zoom in far enough and have elevation turned on, you can see topo lines with labels as well as elevation at the cursor location.
The detailed maps include hunting areas, wildlife management areas, public lands, military, national and state forests, parks, lakes, rivers, streams, creeks, etc. Different categories look different on the IFinder screen, and they are different colors when looking at the maps on the computer.
Some marine navigation features are included in MapCreate: wrecks, obstructions, markers, buoys, boat ramps, marinas, docks and others.
There is a Miami demo map included in the IFinder. It includes additional information such as depth and tide information including current and direction at selected points (stations). You can change the date and time to see tide information for the future. This is a nice preview of the nautical charts and maps that are available on memory card for the IFinder. You have to select the Miami Demo map to see this. Fishing maps are available on memory card too.
Aeronautical charts are also available on memory card for the IFinder. There is no preview for those. The included MapCreate 6 software includes runway direction and elevation. It does not include runway length or NAV frequencies. You could probably use the distance function in Ifinder to get an idea of runway length. You would not want to rely on the included maps for runway info because it may be difficult to tell the difference between old inactive runways or taxiways and active runways. MapCreate 6 shows towers, but not tower heights. So MapCreate 6 is not suitable for aircraft navigation.
Wish list
IFinder: It would be nice if average speed could be reset by the user.
MapCreate6: It would be nice if importing waypoints would accept longer waypoint names. The IFinder can handle long names, but they get cut off when importing.
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