Lowrance Iway

[TexasDawg]

Is anybody using a Lowrance Iway 500C? I just ordered one after alot of searching and read the board here, put didn't see if anyone was using one or not? I almost ordered the TomTom 300, but the screen on the Lowrance was bigger and it will fit on the Ram mount between the handlebars. Any opinions,,,

[Tor]

The big (IMO) drawback with the Iway is that you can not plan routes on it while it is sitting on the bike. You have to use a computer to plan a route. You can, however, put in a A to B route, but thats it (while it is sitting on the bike. Another drawback (IMO) is that it uses a hard drive instead of a compact flash card. I am not so sure about a hard drive on a bike (vib. failures)


Tor

[jslarson]

I am now on my 3rd IWay 500. The first one the software failed, returned and got unit 2. The second unit the buttons failed, I was told this is a common problem so returned for unit 3. Unit 3 has a problem where it looses track of where it is. It also has me at times about .3 miles away from my actual location. I have called Lowrance and they have told me it is a unbeleivable that I got 3 bad units. I have contacted several other companies that sell the Iway and they have stopped selling them due to the high failure rate. You decide for youself.

[Blrfl]

Got one installed as you describe. So far so good, but I'm only a few weeks into owning it. Rumor has it the hardware was revised, and hopefully mine's one of the new ones. If it turns out to be a loser, I'll get a Garmin.

On the disk drive issue: I was able to determine the make and model of the drive they used (Hitachi 40GNX) without opening the unit and pulled the spec sheet on it. It looks like it should survive rough use, but time will tell. In all of the discussion about the drive failures in the Garmin 2620, nobody ever mentioed what they were using. I suspect that it was a microdrive, and those are notoriously unreliable in harsh environments.

--Mark