Customer Reviews

Lowrance Mapcreate U.S.A. Map CD-ROM (Windows) (Bundle)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I bought the Lowrance iFinder Explorer C device after reading many reviews. I knew from other friends that have bought high end Lowrance products for their vessels that there were numerous issues with the software add-ons.

The base unit is affordable and has a very good outdoor screen. Battery life is better than their older predecessors. The comments already posted do a great job of desribing the rest of the issues.

I am writing this to give a bit more detail to my experience with the MapCreate software. The customer service is intolerable. Because they had no issues in their office with their installatios and use of their own software, it couldn't be their software causing the startup issues I was experiencing. I querried: Do you have Quickbooks or a Brother label printer installed? No response.

I find it odd that I cannot install the full program and do not need the CD or their out-of-date SD/MMC card reader necessary to use their mapping program. This slows up my use of my high speed setup and is out of step with the times. I appreciate they do not like their maps to be copied without permission. I would not either. There are other more customer friendly methods to accomplish their security, they just need to update: I would suggest if they really cared about us, they would update their archaic methods.

The bottom line: You are on your own if you need to purchase Map-Create, from what I consider a rather arrogant group of design/support people at LEI. I give a poor rating to the software, which is lacking in some controls, and doubt they would accept feedback as they have no way of collecting it and customer service is irreproachable.

The unit itself is OK. I tried the latest Garmin Colorado unit at Cabella's and the navigation controls are superior to the iFinder. Software is also an issue for them, apparently, but I doubt I would have the same install issue as the LEI software.

I am very dissatisfied! I was respectful and patient, but am awaiting a response from my message of over 2 weeks ago.

Update: 11/102008
I finally got the program installed after letting it sit on the shelf since this review. (I tried to sell on eBay, but no takers for a reasonable amount!.

I tried installing again on a fresh install of XP SVC PK 3. Same garbage. I emailed support and also went to the vendor who creates LEI's installation file. Same stuff. I then tried my own fix after reading the same results from many sites, which was suggested by LEI, they left me hanging as I expected. Here's what I did: I deleted all the files from C:\Program Files\Common Files\InstallShield...! This is a risky venture, it is suggested you rename the InstallShield folder to Old_InstallShield... but, as geek, I was willing to just delete and move ahead and accept the consequences. It worked. Now I can create my maps.

All is well. I emailed both LEI and the Install Shield Co's to let them know how they can help their customers... nothing heard.

So if you can navigate through your PC you can try the above... I do suggest you rename rather than delete.

Got this for my Lowrance LMS-527cDF iGPS unit (fish finder and GPS) Had no problems using it for both street maps and lakes. It does not have the accuracy or detail that Garmin has, but that is not a fair comparison. It does have a ton of detail including minor streets and rural roads and fair shore detail (includes bottom contours and structure as well a some fishing info) when you are in the boat. Even though you can buy a 4 gig. SD chip, the software would not load more that about 5 or 6 hundred Megabytes per map. That is not a big problem because 500 megs will cover about 5 or 6 states, and you can load as many maps on the chip as you have room for. It only limits you to producing 5 chips. So be sure to get the largest chips you can affored and you will not run out of map space before the 5 chip limit shuts you down.

I purchased version 7 after buying a Lowrance 540c. I've had nothing but problems with the supplied card reader. I sent it to Lowrance for repair and after a couple of weeks they sent me 2 new card readers at no charge. 1 of the 2 new readers didn't work at all and the second one worked for a couple of months and now it's dead. I asked around and found out that this has been a problem all the way back when they released ver. 6.3 . I like the 540c but would have purchased another brand GPS if I knew how poor Lowrance software was going to be with there reader.

I knew this software limited it's owners to only 5 memory cards, but my GPS can use up to a 1 gig card, so I didn't think that would be a problem. I made a map of the southwest, 850 meg, and thought all was going fine until the software ended with "!!!!! Assert Failed !!!!!" while writing the map to the card. I contacted Lowrance and their recommendation was to limit maps to only 16 meg, a maximum of 32 per card. That only will use about 1/2 of the 1 gig card. A 16 meg map doesn't even cover a rectangle bordered by Phoenix, AZ and Las Vegas, NV. That requires 70 meg. They said the GPS would move from file to file automatically but there is no way in the software to tile the maps so I'll have to guess at borders when building the maps.

Maps can only be rectangles or corridors, which are rectangles linked together.

The DVD must also be in your drive to use the software, not just when writing to a card. The kit came with a memory card, but I haven't found a way to determine what size it is and my PC can't read the card directly. So it is useless to me.

My GPS is a Lowrance iFinder PHD so maybe yours will work better and the software won't crash.

I had great hopes for this software and it may yet deliver, but it is going to be very painful and time consuming to build maps for the area I need.

I recently have purchased the MapCreate 7 Software and Accessories Pack. It does have some issues, but overall is very good. By the way, this is a product review, and not a review of the seller. This may be attached to a review of a seller I did not purchase from.

I do have some complaints, but not major ones.

1) I wish the software worked with my MMC/SD card reader that is installed already on my computer. The last thing I need on my older laptop (purchased 10/2005) is another usb device. By the way, before purchasing make sure your optical drive is a DVD drive (or DVD/CD). There is about 4.5 gigabytes of data on that disk!

2) The maps are not up to date in my area. There are missing subdivisions that are in my area built within the past six years! (by the way, this is why I bumped this review from 5 stars to 4)

3) The software locked up my computer once while loading, I had to hard boot (remove the battery and unplug) it to shut it down for the restart, no other problems since then.

4) Could be my computers fault, but the software takes it's time loading maps an SD Card. I have XP Pro, a 3.2 gHz processor, 1.25 gigs of memory. It takes about 10 minutes to load one card.

However, the software is fairly easy to use after skimming the directions. One can load quite a bit of info on one SD card. My kit came with a two Gig SD card, plenty of space for travel within one's own state. I estimate that one could get all 50 states on five to seven two gigabyte cards with every detail.

What makes the MapCreate software so useful is the ability to select what you want on the maps. Example, If you hunt, load the hunting information, if you don't, save the bytes. Want marine or lake navigation? It will show them, or again save the bytes.

The software is not the easiest to use, it could be better, The commands could be easier for the general public. I am sure the programmers and coders knew what they where talking about. This is not a major fault though, it is easy enough to use if one reads the manual.

I have had no major issues, and I have not had to call their tech support.

Not sure what the other poster is complaining about. I have a 512K card for my GPS and I load files for each state: One file for NM, one for CO, etc. with no problems. The detail of the maps is excellent. I am very satisfied with MapCreate.

Map Create 7 is easier to use than previous models because everything is on one CD. There was some confusion getting the map border that I chose to the SD card. I think it was user error. You need to save map before you transfer it to the chip. The map detail is not as detailed as my Navionics Hot Maps Premium chip used in a newer gps/depthfinder, but the lowrance LCX15 would not except that chip and called for the one made by Map Create.

this was exactly what we needed for the lowrance gps, instructions were a little confusing and ended up getting it right by chance, not by following the instructions.

I just received this GPS mapping software. I played around with it for a little while and found it to be interesting. I haven't tried map creation yet but I'm sure it will be a great tool for my Lowrance iFinder Expedition c.

The lake detail of the Great Lakes specifically Lake Erie seems very good. The contour lines seem accurate. The port locations also seemed accurate.

The local roads both urban and rural seemed pretty good as well. I was able to locate an obscure rural road that I fish near pretty quickly and it's map location seemed accurate.

I also searched for a hiking trail that I use occassionaly and it too showed up on the map. It was marked as a road, however, and not a trail, so I'll need to take my GPS and see where exactly the trail starts. There are a lot of back roads in the area so we'll see.

All in all it seems like a good investment with good mappping detail and capabilities.

Software is not that great. Had to install an upgrade just to get it to work w/o crashing/hanging up (on Win XP). Even then, it cannot do large maps at one time. thus you have to make several smaller ones which just takes more time. Will occasionallly lock up anyway. Also, appears to require a special card reader to limit # of MMC/SD cards used. Pretty lame attempt to limit people copying maps for others.

The website is not great either for updates, etc. My device has a newer version than available upgrade on the website !