Great Low-Price, Good Feature GPS

I had been looking at GPS systems for over a year but was reluctant to take the plunge. The major deterrents were cost, a slew of mixed reviews (mostly reflecting problems with accuracy and features), and size. I had decided to bite the bullet and go to one of the major electronics stores to buy a fairly costly ($499 or more) model from one of the major manufacturers like Magellan or Tom Tom, when I happened to come across the Lowrance iWay 250c on sale for $299 after rebate at Staples. Lowrance has been making GPS systems for some time, but they are a less-well known company for GPS (their background, as far as I was aware, seemed to be in making fish-finders). And I usually buy pens, not major electronics, at Staples. So what attracted me away from the major manufacturers and the electronic mega-stores? As far as buying from Staples, they assured me that I could open and preview the GPS unit, and if I didn’t like it, I could return it for no restocking fee (I’m not sure if the manager was delirious or if this is a company policy, but I like it). As for the GPS, read on….

The Package: The iWay 250c comes with mounting hardware (a plastic holder that attaches to a long, snake-like thing with a suction cup that you can attach to your car window or to a metal disk that you stick to your dashboard), an auto (lighter socket) power cord, a USB cord, software, and a manual. I found the mounting hardware to be much like that for other GPS units, which is to say a huge pain in the neck. It does a fine job of sticking on to the window and holding the unit, but I still can’t figure out if the “neck” of the thing bends, and it looks like some kind of alien sticking out from my window. Unfortunately, Lowrance does not make a vent-mount for the unit, and none of the generic vent-mounts (which are usually made to hold cell phones and PDA’s) can stretch to the size needed to hold a GPS unit. Ultimately, I’ve had to rig up my own creation that uses the Lowrance-provided plastic holder, attached (with screws and rubber bands) to a cell-phone vent-mount. It works perfectly, but it took some effort (and my wife doesn’t like the improvised look of it).

Physical Features: The iWay 250c is slightly larger (about 1 cm larger on all sides) and the same shape as a deck of cards. In other words, it’s pretty small, fitting easily into a pocket. The screen (3 inches by 2 inches) occupies most of the front of the unit (no buttons on the front). There is an on/off button, SD card slot, and power jack on one side. The other side is occupied by a USB port and headphone jack. A small antenna (about the size of a quarter) flips up from the back of the unit to help with reception. There is a stylus (about the size of a typical PDA stylus), which tucks into the back of the unit near the bottom. Overall, the ergonomics are good. The size is much better for portability than some of the baseball-sized units, which fit in your hand but look odd if you are able to stuff them into a pocket (this was the deal-breaker for some of the Garmin units that I investigated).

Startup: After pushing the power button, you are greeted with a brief introductory screen, followed by a caution screen that warns you to look at the road when you drive. In order to proceed and close the caution screen, you have to touch an exit option which is a minor but annoying inconvenience. After this, you are greeted with a map screen, as the unit searches for the GPS signal. The initial search time varies from less than a minute to significantly longer, depending on your location and whether you are making the GPS do other stuff (routing, etc.) at the time. There have been a couple of times when it was pretty slow, but, eventually, it has always gotten a signal when I have used it, even when I was sitting in my house. In general, the speed of signal acquisition has been acceptable when I have it in my car near the window.

Mapping and Location: The mapping software (US [all 50 states] and Canada on my unit – I live in the US) from Navteq comes on an included 2 GB SD card, which fits in the slot on the side. There is a small amount of space on the card for you to store music and pictures, but the space is negligible. I bought a 4 GB SD card, copied everything over to it, and now have plenty of space for other stuff. This also allows me to store the original 2GB mapping card in a safe place as a backup. In addition to being able to copy the maps to another SD card without special assistance or some kind of killer security procedure, you can backup the maps to a DVD, hard drive, or other storage device. This is nice for peace of mind.
The maps themselves are pretty accurate and up-to-date. I found my son’s school, which finished construction in mid-2005, on the map. So far, only 1 street (a small cul-de-sac in my neighborhood) has been identified with the wrong name. It is very easy to switch maps to another region (supposedly, you can get maps for Europe and other locations in the world), because you can just pop out the SD card and replace it with a different one. However, the Lowrance website is not much help in locating those other regional mapping cards (for driving, that is; they do offer a number of topographical cards). I have heard that you can use cards with standard Navteq and TeleAtlas maps, but I haven’t tried this out yet. Suffice it to say that I’ve heard that getting other region maps is easy, but I don’t have firsthand knowledge. The same can be said for updating the maps.
The points-of-interest (POI) are pretty complete as well. On a recent trip, I had no trouble finding rest areas, restaurants, and gas stations on the unit. The unit shows the POI on the map as icons, which you can tap to find out more information. Alternatively, you can search for different types of POI’s relative to your position. The unit provides the name of the POI with direction and distance to the POI. The only disadvantage here is that the unit does not differentiate which ones are ahead of you from which ones are behind you or in a direction perpendicular to the way that you are traveling. Needless to say, I’m not going to turn around and go back 10 miles for a McDonalds, when there is one 20 miles ahead of me.
The iWAY 250c is usually accurate to within 30 feet or less of my actual location. I’ve seen it be within 5-10 feet and as much as 200 feet off. The latter (in)accuracy occurs when it only has a few satellites and is trying to get a better fix. When it’s fully warmed up and tracking several satellites, the location information seems to be very good. I have heard that it does not have the very newest tracking capabilities, but I’m not looking for a quarter in the middle of a football field – I just need to know where the next road is.
The road maps on the screen can be viewed from one of three perspectives: North-up (the way most paper maps are printed), Direction-up (the up direction is whatever direction that you are traveling), or 3-D (kind-of a forward-looking perspective as though you are looking through your car windshield – these are the screens that are usually portrayed in ads for GPS units). Your current street is labeled clearly at the top of the screen, along with your next destination/turn (if you are in routing mode). If you are in routing mode, your next destination/turn along with distance information is printed in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The rest of the screen is the map. All streets are pictured on the map, but only 2-5 streets will be labeled on the map at any one time. I could not detect a rationale for which streets are labeled and which are not, other than that most (but not all) of the labeled streets are larger streets. If you want to see the name of a street that is not labeled, you can touch the street on the screen. Alternatively, as soon as you turn on a street, it is labeled at the top of your screen. The unit has a default setting of Auto-Zoom, which is very nice. In Auto-Zoom, the unit will zoom in to a more detailed street view if you are moving slowly and will zoom out to a broader view if you are moving quickly. Basically, I never have to manually zoom the street view.

Screen: The screen of the unit can be adjusted to three levels of brightness. At maximum brightness, it can be seen even in full sun. I happened to use this unit under the worst conditions of direct sunlight (sun directly on the screen with me looking at the screen from the side), and it was difficult to see in that case. However, if I moved so that I was looking directly at the screen (instead of from the side), I could see the screen without difficulty. The resolution is clear, and I had no difficulty reading even the smallest text on the screen.

Menus and Touch-screen: The menus are very easy to use, and are set up for quick access of the most-used functions. Most menus have large buttons that are activated by touching the screen. Many of the menu buttons are large enough to be selected with an object as large as your finger, but some menu buttons (such as the “x” to close a screen) are small and require the stylus. I’ve found myself almost always using the stylus because of the smaller menu buttons on the screen. Menus allow you to do essentially everything that you use a GPS for, including selecting routes, finding addresses, finding POI’s, and selecting various options.

Routing: You can set routes in various ways. The easiest way is to find a destination, and the unit will automatically map out a route from your current location to the destination. You can also set up routes in a special menu. You can set preferences for types of roads (highway vs. back road), toll roads (allow/avoid), and other characteristics to be considered in your routing. If you don’t like a route, you can set a midpoint that will take the route in the direction that you like. Routes can be saved and recalled later. I have found the unit to be very accurate with the routing. If you go off-route, the unit automatically recalculates to put you back on-route. The recalculation is fairly quick (typically within 5-10 seconds) and has been accurate. At turns, the unit provides a special screen with information, including distance to turn and names of the roads. If you are traveling fast, the stated distance to the turn is usually longer than the actual distance. This appears to be because the unit cannot update your location fast enough, because when I slowed down, the distance became more accurate.

Voice Directions: If you have an active route, the unit will give you voice directions. At turns, sometimes the voice says the street name, and at other times, it just gives the distance to the turn and the direction of the turn. In the event that the street name is not given by the voice, you can see it on your screen. The voice follows any updating of the directions that may occur when you go off-route.

Search Features and Address Book: The search feature by address is very nice because it asks you questions (e.g., state) to narrow your location and then tries to guess at the address that you are typing. This goes quickly and works well. You can then store the locations of key locations.

Power: The unit has a built-in battery that is not easily accessible and would be difficult to replace. I saw ads that say that the battery lasts up to 15 hours. I haven’t tested this, but I have used the unit for 6 hours between charges, and it still had power left. The only power cord that comes with the unit is for your car, so if you want to charge it at home, you need a converter. Other than for charging, I’ve only used the power cord a little, so I can’t say much other than that it works. I’ve heard that the unit powers off automatically if it is plugged in when you turn your car off, but I haven’t experienced that firsthand.

Other Bells and Whistles: The unit has an MP3 player and photo viewer built-in. The MP3 player works fine but is no-frills. The unit speaker is not great for music but is functional. Sound quality is better with ear phones. I tried the photo viewer but it did not work for me. I haven’t worked on it enough to know if I did something wrong, though.

Caveats: The information used in this review is based on my experiences using this GPS in two relatively large US cities (somewhere between the 10th and 25th largest cities in the US) and in some rural and suburban areas. I don’t know how the unit would operate in a larger city like New York or LA. Also, my experience with other GPS units is limited, so I don’t know how the features of this unit compare. Finally, I’ve had this unit for under a month, so reliability is unknown, and there may be some features/problems that I haven’t experienced yet. Overall, however, I’m very satisfied. Let’s just say that I’m not going to need to test that Staples return policy.