The Lowrance iWay 600c is the first portable GPS+WAAS navigation device to offer both highway and marine navigation capabilities. For marine duties the iWay 600c has watertight sealing. 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.

Siblings to the 600c are the lower specification Lowrance iWay 250c, 350c and 500c. The other automotive GPS sibling models do not have the 600’s standout features of detailed satellite imagery for hundreds of major cities in the US and Canada and marine mapping/navigation capabilities. Maps overlay the satellite imagery as with Google Maps.

A 12-channel parallel receiver has WAAS (Wide Area Augmentation System) capabilities giving the Lowrance iWay 600c enhanced accuracy to within 3 meters.

The 600c has a touch-screen display with voice and visual turn-by-turn directional guidance. It has a 30GB internal hard drive, with 25GB of storage dedicated to high-detail mapping and satellite imagery (10GB dedicated to mapping detail for Western Europe models). 5GB of storage is reserved for MP3 audio files and JPEG image files (20GB for Western European models). The 600c comes preloaded with comprehensive NAVTEQ digital map data of the USA and Canada, plus electronic charts with depth contours for U.S. inland lakes, Great Lakes and coastal waters. Users also gain access to the NAVTEQ Points-of-Interest database which includes over 5.5 million high-interest destinations such as restaurants, hotels, leisure facilities and gas stations.

The iWAY 600c provides a conventional straight-line marine navigation mode, with up to 100 savable and retraceable plot trails. There are special marine graphic icons to mark favorite fishing spots and boaters can enter and save waypoint latitude –longitude as with most Lowrance marine chartplotters.

Display

The iWay 600c 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 600c’s MP3 player features include;

• automatic muting of music for voice directions
• 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.

iWay 600c 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. Over 5.5 million POI (Points of Interest)
• 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

Marine Navigation

• Over 3,000 Enhanced U.S. Lake Maps with depth contours for inland waters.
• High-detail NauticPath charts for the Great Lakes and Coastal U.S. waters with depth contours, navaids, port services, tide/current data , and more.
• 100 savable and retraceable plot trails in a choice of colors.
• Special marine graphic icons to mark favorite spots on the water.

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

• 30GB internal hard drive, with 25GB of storage dedicated to high-detail mapping and satellite imagery (10GB dedicated to mapping detail for Western Europe models). 5GB of storage reserved for MP3 audio files and JPEG image files (20GB for Western European models).
• 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

User Reviews and Price Comparisons

Lowrance iWAY 600C GPS

Lowrance 000-0125-01 iWAY 600C Portable GPS System

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Further Reading

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