 "Not as good as expected." | 2008-08-21 |
| - Reviewed By kenny1982 |
| I have had this unit for three years. When going to an address it would do a good job of giving me the best route. When entering addresses, it was not at all intuitive. It could not seem to find many of the addresses I entered. While entering addresses, I would have to press a letter more than once to get it to register. This became worse with time. The unit's power button did not always work. I would have to unplug it from it's power source to shut it down. After 3 years of use now it will only turn on in power saver mode. I have retired the unit and purchased a Magellon. Overall I would say the routing software worked well, but the unit was glitchy. I would not recomend it. If you have the money to spend Lorance makes a top notch high end GPS but you will have to spend 900.00 for it. If you want a bare bones nav unit, forget this one and go with Garmin or Magellon. |
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 "Not My Perfect GPS but a Useful Value" | 2007-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By lindasaffell |
I agree with the reviewer who said the iWay is not without faults but a good GPS for the price.
I've used the iWay 350C in my car for over a year now. I purchased it after briefly using the in-dash nav system in a loaner car while mine was being serviced. I've also recently compared the iWay with a cell-phone navigation option (TeleNav version 3.6 on a Motorola cell phone). Prior to these I used maps generated by Yahoo! or similar web services with directions printed out for my trips. There is no one perfect navigation system, in my estimation.
The iWay 350C is a good value for the price. For those drivers without .mp3 options in their vehicles, the music player is a nice feature. Unfortunately, the music function does seem to impact on the iWay's navigation, however.
My unit was returned once, just under a year of use, when the battery refused to hold a charge and the unit would not start up. On return, it functioned perfectly until a month later when the touch screen calibration began to fail. I'm preparing to return the unit to Lowrance again, hoping this can be corrected. Touch screen problems make the unit essentially useless since you need to select destinations, start music play, even acknowledge pop-up messages using the touch screen.
On a recent trip from Maryland to Pennsylvania, after our family "discovered" the .mp3 player function, the iWay was not able to generate a route (it claimed there was not sufficient memory) until after we drove part of the route; it again had difficulty with memory on the return trip. It seemed that stopping music player function improved the routing capacity. By comparison, the phone-based navigation generated the route both ways, but dropped its connection with the satellites numerous times, and was slow to prompt for turns (this version of the TeleNav service only provides voice prompt and turn icons, not maps).
Even with these upsetting problems, for the price and flexibility, the iWay 350C has served well as a navigation system for many other trips, and works well for finding directions in denser areas where I travel. I've looked at the Garmin, Magellan, and TomTom units and have not seen one that I thought offered the functionality for the money that the Lowrance does. Though I would prefer never to need to interact with product support I've found Lowrance's support to be very capable. |
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| "Not for Motorcycles" | 2007-07-02 |
| - Reviewed By User: A3EFKAQ8WE05C7 |
Nice unit for a car, but it won't work on a bike. A little slow, but not bad especially for that price. I bought one for my motorcycle, but it shut itself off within 15 minutes. I called Lowrance and they thought it was a battery problem, so I sent it back (Amazon was amazingly cooperative; Great Customer service!!!). I tested the new one in my truck and it worked great, but 10 minutes in the motorcycle mount and it shut down again. I tested it in several other vehicles and it work everywhere but on a motorcycle. Lowrance and Amazon were good about taking it back, but Lowrance had no idea it wouldn't work on a bike.
I just bought a Garmin Zumo 550 (made specifically for a bike) and I love it, although it's more than twice the price. |
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 "Get one!" | 2007-02-19 |
| - Reviewed By User: AG8A38222MI1M |
Received our iWay 350 on Saturday. Took it out to the car to charge it and to see how long it took to find our location; it took about 45 seconds. The preloaded version was 1.3 and V1.4 is available on the Lowrance web (I installed the update after charging the 350 about an hour). If you want to save a LOT of time, download the update to your PC, follow the manual to connect the iWay (USB) and execute the update from your PC. Downloading it directly to you memory card is painfully slow. I also loaded a new "skin", but the default is easiest to see.
Sunday noon we went to lunch and to the driving range (golf that is) and tested the 350. Our favorite restaurant was in the POI data base and I did a search for the golf course and added them both to the address book. I also entered our home. I have never used a GPS unit before and I can't believe how simple it is to use. I uploaded a CD (MP3's) to the SD disk and we headed out to lunch. We tuned in an empty FM station (you can select any you want) and turned on the FM player. The sound quality was fantastic. We were even amazed how good it sounded right from the 350. The (female) voice could not have been any clearer.
The directions were almost perfect, when we pulled into the restaurant parking lot the 350 showed that we still had 66 feet to the destination (I suppose that was to our table). We continued to the golf course and then home purposely taking wrong turns a few times. The 350 recalculated our route every time in less than one minute without a glitch. The Gauge page is pretty sharp. It tracked our vehicle speed to within 5 mph consistantly and gave us an accurate ETA to each location. I wish it also showed our altitude on the Gauge page, you have to go to the satellites page to see that. By the way, our three trips totaled about 45 miles, most of it on lovely Oklahoma country roads (did I say lovely?).
I realize that we have only had the 350 for one day, but we are already sold on the unit. My concern that I should have bought the Garmin instead is history. I prefer the fact that I have so much more control of the display and options with the 350. iWay 350 and Version 1.4 software.. outstanding. |
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| "Good value, but not without hiccups" | 2007-02-03 |
| - Reviewed By chicagoanindc |
Overall, I'd say I'm satisfied with my iWay, but not thrilled. I've had it for over a year now, and I've noticed a few quirks, some major, some minor. But when it works, it works.
One problem is that it often takes over 3 minutes for the unit to start navigating, and in areas with large buildings, it can be nearly impossible to get the proper signal strength to orient itself for the first time with the satellites. This means if you don't sit there and wait and instead you start driving, it may take up to 10 minutes for your directions to be synced up with your location. On shorter trips this renders it essentially useless. My friends' GPS units are all much faster than that, and I've seen the difference when both mine and a friend's are in the same location.
Once it's linked to the satellites, however, I have few major complaints. It's generally pretty good at choosing routes. You'll have to play with the settings that allow you to choose a tendency to send you down highways vs. side streets to optimize it for your area but once you're done with that it's pretty good.
The fact that it plays music and displays photos is neat, and you can add ANY size SD card to it, despite it saying a max of 512MB in the documentation - so it's pretty cool now that you can essentially turn it into a 4GB MP3 player with the big SD cards out these days. However, I've found that when you're using the built-in FM modulator to make the music come from your car stereo, the problems acquiring and retaining a navigation signal get much worse. It seems to me that it doesn't manage power usage within the device well.
I bought this when it had a major price advantage over some models from Garmin and TomTom, but since then, pricing has become more competitive and that gap has shrunk. If I were making the purchase again, I might pay what is now a smaller premium for what are probably more matured or full-featured devices. |
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| "Lowrance iWay 350 gps" | 2007-01-26 |
| - Reviewed By deannfhickman |
| Unit works well but the manual shipped with the unit was for the older software. I checked the Lowrance web site for an updated manual but there wasn't one. The differences in the new software took a while to figure out. If a correct manual were available I would have rated the unit 4 stars. |
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| "Good but need improvement" | 2007-01-15 |
| - Reviewed By User: AUKQ66OPKYLN7 |
I used it for 2 months. In general, it does work but it does not take into consider highway. I guess it is trying to take you the shortet route. Sometime you have to drive around & around to get to get to the shortest distance. Also I still have not yet to enter the address using route 1 (us-1: highway, local...). It is still too slow to find your current location. I normally get in the car and go. You need to wait for it to find your location first(around 2 minutes) before you start the trip.
The device froze 2 times in NYC. I tried to use it in NYC to get to NJ. I did not follow the original direction to avoid toll road and the device froze 2 times I tried it. I guess it is because NYC has too many roads. |
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 "Alexdon" | 2006-11-03 |
| - Reviewed By User: A25UFC1SEOCC9W |
This device does many things well except one, NAVIGATE.
It shows pictures very clearly, it plays music quite nicely but 9 out of 10 times it cannot get you from point A to point B without major confusion.
Every negative review I have read about this device, I am afraid is true.
Slow processor, unacceptably sloooow, poor maps and even worse navigating algorithms. Maps shows all the names of parallel streets but hardly ever the names of intersections (which are the ones that really count, the other stuff is just clutter).
I you are looking for a good portable device that plays mP3s and shows good pictures (the display is top notch)then you may consider it, although there many nice players out there and a lot chaper (and smaller to boot).
If you are looking for a GPS system, forget it, don't buy yourself a headache.
I returned mine to Amazon! |
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| "Great looking maps, can't find its way out of a paper bag." | 2006-09-17 |
| - Reviewed By User: A1OVIML2K60JJD |
I logged 870 miles with the iway 350. 270 miles around maryland it was / is a great item. I took it on our first trip to New York and Long Island and it was terrible. The first problem occurred on the New Jersey turnpike. I was supposed to use the turnpike from start to exit 18 and at exit 4 we stopped to eat. The unit said I was off course because the rest area was 100 feet from the highway. However when we returned to the highway the unit could not chart the course any more. It said I was doing 95 miles a hour when i was doing 70, and it would lose satellites and go searching for them in the middle of the highway no obstructions of any kind anywhere. I even pulled over at exit 6 and we waited for 20 minutes to see if we just needed to stop the car for it to do the job. It did not recalculate our course until after exit 18 some 100 + miles from when it acted up. We even tried a full restart and cancel route and retried again from the address book and from direct typing the information again. About 1 mile from our destination it worked for 2 blocks and was lost again. Then after 2 more blocks we found where we where going. We often get lost on this trip this is why we purchased the unit. Then on the trip from the Bronx to Long Island a 30 mile trip it stopped 5 blocks into the journey and was recalculating. I had to call the people we where visiting and they directed us by phone. However about 1 mile from their place it started working again. We used it on long island with no trouble at all. Then on trip back to the Bronx it worked pretty good only losing its position once on a major highway no trees or obstructions. Then on our way back from the Bronx to long Island it was lost half the way finding position and calculating . The same exact way we went in both directions but it was clearly not right leaving the Bronx. On our way back to Maryland it operated pretty good after a short stretch of lost signals and redirecting and we used exactly the same roads in both directions. I did update the software to the new 1.2.0 days before we took the trip.
Also charting the 212 mile course to the Bronx NY took close to 20 minutes, then the extra destination to Long Island a 30 mile addition took the Iway 350 30 or so more minutes. I figured with all that time the trip home calculations would be faster but I fell asleep after waiting over a hour for it to complete the task. I feel this is one issue the unit has. Longer trips take so long to calculate so when it thinks your off track it takes forever to chart a new course. On short runs under 20 miles it was very fast.
I returned the unit and got a Garmin C530. The C530 is a very nice unit fast in every respect. |
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 "Best portable unit around for the price!" | 2006-08-26 |
| - Reviewed By freeindc |
| This is a solid, feature-rich unit at a great price. Used it on several long trips and it performed well. Satellite locking and overall operation have been improved with the latest free software version 1.2.0 (if you have an older version, upgrades are available at the Lowrance web site). Screen brightness and touch screen controls are top notch - better than many higher-end units. Unit can get slightly sluggish if playing MP3's while navigating, but not so much so to cause any problems. Rechargeable battery life is better than most. In the sub-$500 class GPS this unit is tops! |
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