Lowrance GPS, IWAY 100M, 3DIAGONAL, WAAS,

Excellent portable GPS for both CAR navigation and handheld

Strengths: Designed and works very well for both CAR navigation and handheld. Very high function/ price ratio

Weaknesses: Manual is too brief like all other Lowrance GPS products

Summary: This GPS is awesome. Got it for less than $200 and found it is really worth it. On Car navigation side, iWay 100M has most of the same features that the colored Lowrance iWay 500 has. Used as a handheld when the turn-by-turn is turned off, it performs very like the Lowrance iFinder H2O. The map is pretty new and accurate. (this product debuted late last year and I believe that the may was up to that time). After I got it, I never had a headache again for lost in San Francisco! The customized map software is very easy to use. So you can load up to 512M Map on the machine. I loaded California, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado and part of WE area in Canada for ~ 350M. Lowrance specs. 512 M but someone tried 1G is also working! The issue so far on this machine is that you have to figure out something by your self since the manual does NOT tell you all the features and it kindly refer you to read another manual for Lowrance iFinder H2O! But their customer service is really helpful.

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Good performing GPS for car and portable

Strengths: Very accurate in a small unit.

Weaknesses: Software and card reader don't perform well in an XP Home Eddition powered computer. Supplied MMC card is way too small.

Summary: Loading 5 discs into my computer was a time consuming problem. Several times a message came up that I had the wrong disc in the drive and to go back to #1. Going back caused the upload to start all over. It took over an hour to finally load all 3+ gigs onto my hard drive.

The manipulation of the software was fairly simple after the complete install was completed. Except trying to download a selected area onto the supplied 128MB card for insertion in the GPS. Every time I tried, it locked up the computer and I had to power down and start over. Because of the warning on a separate instruction flier that Windows would try to load a Windows driver instead of the driver included in the software, I suspected a driver was the problem. When trying to correct the driver problem the software completely crashed my computer. All personal settings were lost and could not be restored. All personal documents were lost and could only be restored from copies.

At this point I uninstalled the complete package which allowed the computer to come back to it's previous settings. When I called Lowrance for support the waiting time was only about 5 minutes. Pretty good considering.

The support tech gave me the solution to the problem in a relatively short time. It seem that the supplied card reader labeled "MMC/SD CARD READER" was not compatable with Windows XP. Another hour to install the software and a half hour to download a patch to the driver and an upgrade to the card reader fixed the problem. If yours has the same label download the patches prior to attempting any manipulation of the maps for personal use.

I then selected a local map for downloading to the 128MB card. The software indicated the size was about 119MB put after a 20 minute waiting time for processing and downloading, it said the map was too large for the card. After 3 tries to make it smaller, it finally accepted only 66MB of selected a map area. Buy a larger card!!

I planned a 500 mile mile round trip over a 3 day period. When I told the GPS to plot the route, it took a long time and finally said that there was not enough memory for the 126 mile first leg of the journey.

Actually using the GPS to navigate was simple and accurate. It was dead on with the position fix and tracked my test drive accurately. The unit is great, the software is not friendly. Since you cannot watch progress easily while driving, I found putting the unit in a pocket and just checking from time to time and listening to the voice was better that mounting the unit on the windshield.

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Great piece of hardware at the price

Strengths: Small, light, battery powered, expandable

Weaknesses: heavily copy protected software, small screen

Summary: OK, frame of reference - this unit can be had for under $200. Would I rather have a Tom Tom? Sure. But, for the money, this unit is GREAT. Very accurate, easy to move from car to car, includes everything you need to get going - mapping software has listings for everything from underwater obstacles to local MickyDs. If you do any traveling, you'll need a sizable memory card - half a gig works pretty well, but I'll probably try a gig card when the price comes down (unit ships with a totally inadequate 128mb card - if you're going more than a county or two away, you'll probably need more). Software works well, but forces you to use their (1.1) USB card reader, even if you've got another reader on your system. I've found estimates of map size to be WILDLY wrong, wasting a LOT of time building maps that couldn't be loaded. It also requires you to load their map CD eash time you run the software, so even if you've occupied almost 3GB of disk space with the software, you'll need to travel with a CD. Finally, the software is keyed to permit loading maps to a maximum of 5 memory cards, so you can't pre-build a larger group of cards to swap out. Obviously, you can get around most of these limitations, but it really is a shame that they make you jump through so many hoops to use the software, because, (again, for a CHEAP device) it works SO well. And it make my wife so happy that I'm not sceaming at her for directions...

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solid product, map outdated

Strengths: good for both in car and handheld, cheap

Weaknesses: maps are outdated

Summary: I got this thing for $139. But I saw more and more color GPS units selling at $150 AR during recent months.

The first thing I did is check my address. But I can't find it. I have been living in my current house ever since 2002. But I did find my neighbor's address on the same street. So I have to record a waypoint to mark my house. Also while I drove on I-605 in Los Angeles, the GPS showed I was driving on local road and start to recalculate route. This happened several times.

They are supposed to give us the map of 2004, but I guess the maps are outdated.

I would use it for outdoor activity. As long as it can record waypoints, I am satisfied with this unit at this price.

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