Customer Reviews

Lowrance 112-61 iWay 350C 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Installation:
I mounted the 350C on a ZTechnik Spider Mount.
I bolted the Lowrance plastic mount onto the ZTechnik plate after removing (severing) the flex arm using flathead countersunk machine screws. BIG MISTAKE. The unit would not stay powered for more than a couple of minutes, or the operating system would crash.
I actually took the unit back to the store and exchanged it. The second one did the same thing.
I figured out that the screws must have been ferrous or otherwise magnitized and was messing up the GPS.
The fix: I removed the screws and used velcro strips. I'm not entirely comfortable with that but it'll work for now until I decide on using plastic screws or maybe JB Weld on the mount.
For audio, I use my ear plugs direct to the device. The audible turn-by-turn instructions cut in while music is playing.
Performance:
About 1 minute to get 3D signal while not under a structure or otherwise being blocked.
I can operate the touch screen with heavy armored AlpineStar gloves although some of the detailed settings are more difficult to engage. That's OK, because of the monitor size, I don't expect to have more than the basic necessities while wearing gloves.
The screen is fully visible in all lights.
The audio comes over well and the controls are easy to use. You can even select music through a file manager while in the music player mode.
Music also comes thru while in map mode.
I am having difficulty trying to adjust the volume. Pushing the buttons doesn't seem to work. Maybe I should read the directions...NOPE, why start now?
The unit is small enough that it fits into the ferring compartment on my BMW R1150RT (I removed the stereo brackets so the remaining boot is approx. 12" deep x 8" W with an opening of 3.5" and an internal height of about 4.5". Anyway, I can throw the unit inside the locked compartment with lots of room to spare.
When you miss a turn, the device corrects for the best option and again, the audio kicks in and will tell you where to go in addition to screen overlay instructions and arrows.

Transferring data:
I upload .mp3's directly to a 1 GB SD card by inserting the card in a reader in my PC. But you have the option of tranfer via the included USB cable. It's faster if you don't go thru the unit and it won't cause extra drain on the battery.
You can upload any type of data to the card but the device will only read .MP3, OGG Vorbis and common image formats such as .jpg, .bmp.

Device updates:
An update is available for the 500C but not the 350C. Being a stoopid programmer and having a desire to break stuff, I installed the 500 updates and caused all manner of problems. Not to worry. I simply deleted the files from the SD card and it returned to normal. SO it appears that the critical system files are protected in ROM on a chip and there is a good chance that you will have to try harder than me to break it for good.
The 500 will let you modify the interface with "Skins". Just like your favorite PC media player. It is probably possible to hack your own code for the 350 but maybe you'd rather not violate the warranty, pay for repair, or throw $500 to the wind.

Battery:
I haven't ran it until it shut off but I've been using it for 2 hour stretches without external power while navigating and playing music. This is the 5th GPS that I have owned and anyone knows that a GPS will drain batteries easy.
The device is recharged vis DC input and I don't think that the USB cable will charge it since it is a mini USB interface and lacks the power lines.
You may have to drive coast to coast to recharge via the DC outlet on your car or bike. I use a cheap Radio Shack AC to DC outlet adapter and it works fine.
Best to just keep it DC powered by your car or bike while operating to keep the charge up.

Conclusion:
I am very satisfied. The device is truly portable. Just grab and go. Mney well spent.

I have had this unit for about a week now. It is accurate to within 10 feet. I have not had any problems so far. Startup is fast and it only takes about 5-10 to lock on to satellites (if starting cold). If the unit starts from standby then the lock in instantaneous. FM transmitter is a very nice touch as it allows to hear directions and music via your car stereo. You have to play around and find an empty FM frequency. Sound is clean once you find a good frequency. The cool thing here is that you can listen to songs and be navigating at the same time. The unit will tell you directions as they come up while you are listening to songs.
Additional thoughts as of 3/16/06:
I have now had the unit for about three weeks. Some things I noted are listed below:
- The unit does experience some difficulty if you are in a croweded area like downtown with a lot of tall buildings.
- Regarding now being able to connect to computer. Here is what I found out when I called Lowrance. Go to Menu --> Options --> Page 2 --> Interface Setup --> Set the power switch to power off from Stand By. Then power off the unit. Then power it on, and connect to PC. The PC then recognized it just fine.
- I would recommend using a card reader to write data to the memory card, as the unit itself will be slow.
- There is about 24 MB of space on the unit itself to store some additional songs, which are under sample photos and sample music folders. Although these will NOT be available to play if you have a card inserted. So you can take out the card, then you can play these files.
- Rerouting feature is fast.
- The pointing feature allows you to see street numbers and address.
- Once you arrive to your destination, after a few seconds it will ask you if you want to cancel your navigation route. I would have preferred that it do that automatically, or at least h ave that as an option.
- I wish it had come with a line in port so that you can plug in your additional MP3 player and use the FM modulator of the unit to broadcast. Oh well, wishful thinking.
- Rechargeable batteries are great.
- Last but not least, here is one cool feature that I love. The unit's database of addresses might be old but the great thing about this unit is that it will allow you to add some addresses, which the manual says you can store up to a 1000 addresses. here is what I mean: For example, my house, which is new, is not on the map. But while I was parked in my driveway, I clicked on the little red flag in the upper right corner. This is where the unit shines. It knows the lattitude and longitude information of that particular location. Now just click add to addressbook, type in the information, and from now on it will tell you how to get to that particular location. This is such a great feature. After you do this, it will tell you how to get here despite the fact the new address is not part of the database.

The i way 350 is a great GPS.I've had this For a week now and this is what I like..

1. The screen is very bright and easy to read.
2.The touch screen is simple and works well,super easy to navigate.(while sitting parked of course!!).
3.The FM modular is abig bonus!!! it show's pictures too..
4.I had to call lowrence to ask a question,it was after hours so i left a message.They actually called meee back the next day.wow,impressive customer service.... p.s. the auto route feature is very fast, NO Garmin or megellan for me.

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!

Have had i-WAY 350C for 2.5 months. Has performed well since first plugging it in. Initial Sat lock 2 minutes or so. So much configurability, and amazing details available for map screens. Base maps are pre-loaded for US, Canada. Show as many or as few as you need. Address Book holds 1,000 contacts. Load in your via's (Way Points) and autosort, to get best route to make the stops you need. Several free skins available from Lowrance web site, to change the look, if you want. Did experience a very few software inconveniences at first. Not really a problem since the configurability allows "Work Arounds" if needed.

Well, then Lowrance went and updated the firmware. Free download from their web site. Any bugs that may have existed are fixed. Now satellite lock from full off in 15 to 20 seconds. And when booting up from "Stand by" satellite locks are instantaneous. Enhanced, simplified "find" capabilities. 18 different language options. Straight line navigation option (with Via's) for boating.

Battery life is amazing. Have run it for 6 hours on Battery. NavTEQ maps, directions are latest (2005 Q3) and best available. Lowrance advises they will publish NavTEQ map update in Q3 2006.

Could not be happier with this unit. It was very good with software version 1.1.0. Version 1.2.0 update make it AMAZING. If you get a new unit and it does not have latest firmware version, just download it for free. And you have all the new features. Recommend buying a 512Mg (min) SD card. Can go up to 4 mg if you want to. But 512 is minimum needed for software downloads, and after you'll use it for MP3's that can be played thru your radio with the FM modulator feature. Or your can show Photos with the SD card in the unit if you want to.

You could spend $300 or more, and will not find a better AIO GPS with all these features. Has everything you need and much more.

Excellent product! It has a very bright display and easy to read, even in the daylight. It is accurate to with in feet. So far no problems and I believe it was money well spent.

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.

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.

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.

This unit has lots of bells and whistles--like an MP3 player, FM modulator and photo displayer. However, it is quirky about basic navigation. Here's what I learned after completing a multi-day 1500 mile trip:
1. Initialy the unit kept telling me, randomly, to turn right.
2. After 800 miles or so, still during the same trip, it started advising me, randomly, to turn left. It continued to advise left turns, even after arriving at my destination.
3. It missed a number of actual I-80 locations in areas, that as far as I know, have had the Interstate built for many years. This was especially true in the mountain states, and in Nevada.
4. In Northern California, on Highway 20, it would show me on a parallel road (non-existant; or, if existant, on an abandoned logging road). It was highly inaccurate on this (state) Highway which has been in use since the 60's.

Other than the navigation problems, the unit is a pleasure to use, the unit's screen is easy to see in bright light, and its other features are readily accessible. While inputting is not that intuitive, the learning curve is not steep. The unit also seems to acquire sattelites quickly. A great feature of this unit is the ability to overlay almost any time/mileage quantity you might want, for example--ETA, elapsed time to destination, average miles per hour, miles to destination and dozens of more variables, on your map display in a variety of font sizes. Nifty.

I am not familiar with competing GPS units, but the mapping features of this device, I presume due to the Navteq database in firmware are raw and need help. This unit uses a Navteq database with a 2003 date. Perhaps after Lowrance adds this unit to its download database for updating the mapping quirks will be fixed. If Lowrance fixes the unit's issues it would easliy rate four or five stars, depending upon price and one's desire for the bells and whistles.

Update July 14, 2006:

After driving more thousands of miles with the unit, here are additional observations. The unit's search function is virtually useless; you can try inputting addresses in many ways but it just doesn't find the location. It needs a much more robust search algorithm. I wonder why, with all the features the average driver doesn't need (photo viewer, MP3, etc.)why the 350C can't automatically dim the display at night (you have to manually do so); nor, why the unit can't change to a new local time when travelling through a time zone boundary (say from Pacific to Mountain time). Furthermore this unit does not have highway exits on its maps nor uses exit numbers when finding a POI.

The 350c's batteries do not recharge while driving; thus you get the annoying low battery screens and warnings periodically on a road trip if you forget to charge the unit at home. Also, I noticed that after an overnight motel stay, some of the distance data displays don't reset properly on power up, such that the information in the overlay becomes totally unrelated to the actual odometer mileage, for example.

Also, the sunction cup mounting bracket broke after just three months.

Update October 1, 2006

After travelling still more thousands of miles, I still use iWay 350C in my travels. I had to reglue the suction cup mounting bracket. It is fine now.

The iWay 350c does charge, contrary to my comment above, when plugged into a cigarette lighter port but only does so when the display is dimmed to its lowest nightime setting. Thus, during daytime driving you are subject to the annoying low battery alarm advisories, and a flashing "low battery" advisory in the upper right hand corner of the screen. Note the battery runs down quickly m(does not retain charge well), and I find that if I don't use the unit for a few weeks, I have to go through the recharge process all over.

This summer, when temperatures along my travels were over 100 degrees, the unit would shut down randomly in the car--even with the air conditioner at full blast.

I also noticed on a recent trip that the unit picked a route that it had never chosen before, for a trip to a location saved in the address book, and travelled frequently. Don't know why.

It would be terrific if someone would come up with a GPS navigation system that remembers the routes you drive--when they deviate from the suggested roads--and utilizes these actual routes the next time you bring up the destination from the address book. That would be an option I would pay quite a premium for.

October 24, 2006

I recently downloaded a new softeware revision (1.2) for the iWay. It took almost one and a half hours to download, load and install! Plus you have to buy a 512Mb SD card (which I didn't own) in order to load the software onto, before installing the 250Mb file. The result?

The positives:
1. Much better search algorithm. Quicker and more robust.
2. Multi-language support.
3. A variety of other mods and fixes makes accessing the screens more useful and intuitive.

The negatives:
1. The lengthy download procedure.
2. The need to buy a 512Mb SD card.
3. Some of my saved addresses (waypoints) disappeared after the install.
4. All my settings defaulted to the new factory default.
5. It takes hours to fuss with the unit to reduce map clutter by deleting (unchecking) display categories (e.g., all ATM units near the cursor)that the new software displays.
6. MOST IMPORTANT: The new software version is very buggy. It freezes the screen randomly. Worst of all, the cursor appears in the upper left of the screen (freezing the navigation) and cannot be removed by touching the "X". Instead, the unit must be switched off for a few hours and then turned on again, whereupon it will be fine for about two hours before beeping and reverting to the cursor display.
7. Alsmost impossible to keep display data categories on the screen (e.g, ETA, odometer, etc.). For some reason, the new software makes them disappear; then after touching "X" the data will display again only to disappear after a few minutes.

I believe that Lowrance essentially has a good product here. But after using it during thousands of miles of travel, and really trying to give it a chance, I have given up on it. It now sits in a box in the closet.

For the time being I am using a newly purchased Garmin 60CSx, which does not have all the bells and whistles but works flawlessly, eventhough it is a handheld.