Most Bang for the Buck

The IWAY 250C offers more bang for the buck than probably any automotive GPS out there. At less than half the price of a Nuvi 350 it does almost everything its Garmin cousin can do. I’ve had a 250C for a couple of weeks. I was able to compare it to my friend’s Nuvi. Here is how the 250C measures up.

Once the satellite connection is established it tracks your route, generates new routes and keeps up with your position just fine. It does this all while sitting in a cup holder between my seats. I’m still working on a placement. I’m not too excited about the above dash location suction cupped to the windshield. It seems like an advertisement to steal. There is an after market vent mount I’m looking into. The MP3 music playing and JPEG viewing is easy to use. The JPEG viewer requires some patience; it is a little slow loading the pictures. You can pull the map SD chip and slip in your music or photo chip when you don’t need navigation functions. Or you can buy a 4G chip and load all the maps, photos and music together.

Here is what you loose for saving $200. The unit has limited text to speech. It will tell you to turn on I20 or US287 or EXIT 433, but it won’t tell you to turn on Oakmont Street. It has said “Southwest Boulevard” but for the most part the speech is limited to numbered roads and exits. Without the verbal street confirmation I’m forced to glance down at the screen every now and then when it says “Turn right in 600 feet.” That is a minor inconvenience. After a complete power down it can take minutes to reconnect to the satellites. This can take 10 minutes or more if you start moving the car. As a cost saving move Lowrance did not include the latest GPS signal receiving technology or WAAS. The lack of WAAS has little impact. If the 250C computes that you are near a road then it “snaps” you to the road. The older reception capabilities mean it is slow to connect up. Lowrance’s answer to this problem is the inclusion of a Stand By power option. At your election the unit can remain in a powered down but not off state after you turn your ignition off. In this situation it will periodically check for satellites and it will be ready to go the next time you start the car. The manual says that after 24 hours of sleep mode it will power off completely. Of course if your battery is low to start with it might not last that long. I purchased an AC to DC (plug) converter to charge the battery inside the house. My short drives weren’t allowing enough time to charge the unit. Size and weight wise, it is a little bigger and heavier than the Nuvi. It does have the same screen size however. The time to generate a route can be lengthy if the distance is far but in town it takes 15 seconds or less. I suppose the Nuvi would excel here.

Other than the slow reconnect after power down I’m very pleased. My wife who is not technically savvy likes the unit. On a recent trip to Houston it enabled her to navigate effortlessly. You do have to be careful that you end one trip before starting another. She found the machine kept telling her to return to the hotel. We found preprogramming her anticipated destinations in the Address Book made the operation easy. The Find options works well but with 5 million POIs it can take some time to find what you want, especially if you don’t know the proper name.

I also recommend www.gpspassion.com for more information, tips and short cuts.