» Lowrance iWay 500c Automotive GPS Navigator Review

The Lowrance iWay 500c is an automotive GPS+WAAS navigation device which just happens to be sealed watertight. Just why is obvious when you know that Lowrance Electronics is fully owned subsidiary of Navico marine electronics company, a well known for its fishing and marine equipment, such as depth recorders, fish finders, and marine GPS devices. Automotive GPS is a new field for Lowrance however, it promises much given the company heritage. Favorably reviewed by PC Magazine, it received their Editor’s Choice award.

Siblings to the 500c are the higher specification Lowrance iWay 250c, 350c and 600c. The iWay 600c has marine mapping/navigation capabilities in addition to automotive GPS navigation.

A 12-channel parallel receiver has WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) capabilities giving the Lowrance iWay 500c enhanced accuracy to within 3 meters.

The 500c has a touch-screen display with voice and visual turn-by-turn directional guidance. It has a large 20GB internal hard disk drive providing a 10GB allocation for NAVTEQ maps of the United States and an extensive points-of-interest (POI) database with the remaining 10GB reserved for MP3 music storage for the built-in audio player.

Siblings to the 500c are the lower specification Lowrance iWay 250c and 350c and the higher specification 600c. The iWay 600c has marine mapping/navigation capabilities in addition to automotive GPS navigation.

Display

The iWay 500c has a pleasingly large 5 inch (127mm) diagonal, 320×240 resolution display bright enough to be readable when in direct sunlight.

There are a number of options for map display including;

• two dimensional (2D) -“ vertically down,
• three dimensional (3D) - aerial view from a slight angle above,
• north-up - north is always at the top of the screen,
• track-up - where the map rotates to orientate the current direction of travel towards the top of the screen,
• zoom - allows full screen zooming in,
• zoom box - activated by dragging a finger of the relevant section of the display, zoom box reveals a box of detailed street-level information without losing the overall wide map view.
• contour lines - elevation contour lines can be displayed

A promising display option feature is automatic zooming out and zooming in response to speeding up and slowing down respectively. Another handy feature is the ability to adjust the transparency of information displayed, for example heading and speed, to produce an acceptable level of visual clutter.

Other Controls

As well as the touch screen, there are five buttons with functionalities as follows;

• Speak/Volume - volume adjustment or repetition of spoken directions,
• Map/Music - switching between navigation and music player interfaces,
• Menu - access to setup screens, trip calculator and GPS status screens,
• Find - POI (points of interest) database search, route creation from address book, search for locations by address (via a virtual keyboard), adding recent destinations and searches to address book and adding up to 1,000 waypoints with custom icons
• Power - selection of one of four backlighting modes for varying ambient light conditions.

Other Functionalities

Certain undesirable driving maneuvers and particular roads can be eliminated from routing instructions.

Auto-rerouting calculates a new route if the user happens to wander off the given course.

Audio Player

The audio player will recognize MP3 or Ogg Vorbis audio files which can be transferred from a PC via the USB port. It should be noted that the USB port is slower 1.1 version.

The iWay 500c’s MP3 player features include;

• an equalizer,
• scan and shuffle modes,
• a file explorer,
• mp3 playlist support
• skin changing - skins can download from Lowrance’s Web site or transferred from a PC.

User Reviews and Price Comparisons

Lowrance iWay 500C Portable GPS Navigator and MP3 Player

Lowrance iWay 500C GPS Navigation Center with MP3 Player

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iWay 500c Specifications

Display

• sunlight-viewable, 16-bit color TFT touch-screen display
• 320H x 240V pixel resolution
• 5″ (12.7 cm) diagonal display
• super-bright, cold-cathode backlit screen

Navigation

• Built-in, precision 12-parallel channel GPS+WAAS receiver
• Simplified operation with 5 primary keys
• Maps can be updated through the internal USB port with a PC
  Three selectable mapping displays: 2-D Track Up, 2-D North Up, and Elevated 3-D
• Built-in, detailed and highly accurate NAVTEQ turn-by-turn database for the continental U.S. and Canada
• Turn-by-turn audio and visual cues, including auto-zooming and automatic recalculation of directions after a missed turn
• Street address searching, plus auto-routing choices to choose or avoid Toll Roads and Interstates, and avoid Left-Hand Turns
• storage for up to 1,000 waypoints
• Safety Passenger Mode allows a passenger to use the GPS features while the car is in motion

Music Player

• Key music functions include: Browse Files, Play Lists, Repeat On/Off, Shuffle, Equalizer, Pause, Stop, Scan, Skip Forward, Skip Reverse, and Volume

Other

• 20GB internal hard drive, with 10GB of storage dedicated to built-in, high-detail mapping and 10GB of storage reserved for MP3 music (can store up to 5,000 tracks)
• 6.1″W x 4.5″H x 2.15″D (15.5cm x 11.55 cm x 5.45 cm)
• Completely sealed to prevent internal corrosion
• Full one-year warranty
• Integrated Speaker
• 12 vDC plug power adapter for power and recharging
• 110VAC to 12VDC power converter for in-home use (transferring music files, etc.)
• Volume control
• 1/8″ stereo jack
• Hardwire adapter for wiring into car’s stereo system
• Suction-cup mounting bracket for windshield mounting
• USB to PC interface cable

Further Reading

Reviews of Lowrance iWay500c sibling models the lower specification Lowrance iWay250c and Lowrance iWay350c