Simplify your laptop buying
- Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 26 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
Full user review
-
9 out of 9 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Nothing in this price range comes close"
Pros: 4 gig drive, plays mp3's while navigating, detailed map display, excellent POI find features, very configurable
Cons: In this price range, NONE.
Summary: I have read about every portable GPS unit on the market today. I purchased the 350c because of the fact that it can play mp3's while navigating. I like the idea of having all of my Music loaded in one unit, and the fact that it lowers the volume for my music to give me a command, then returns to the song again. I tried the Magellin 3000t and it can NOT do this. On the 3000t, when you enter the mp3 player mode or picture mode, it stops navigation. The 350c even has a built in FM modulator to play through your car radio, or you can bring it in the house and play it through your home stereo without wires. None of the other have this except for the 500c. But the 500c has no internal battery.
The 350c also has limited text to speech in that it tells you the exit number and route number i.e. "turn left onto rt 2 east" or "turn right onto exit 43b". The 3000t just said "bear left in 100 feet" when you need to take an exit. I could NOT follow the 3000t easily at all.
Another nice feature of the 350c is the auto zoom. When approaching a turn, it stays in 3d mode and zooms in on the turn. The 3000t went in to a split screen mode where you see a picture of the turn on one side, and a 2d display on the other. The 350c is MUCH clearer in this regard also.
Detailed map display. The 350c shows all of the details including telephone and power lines! The 3000t showed only the major roads and very little of anything else. The 350c just looks more like a map than the 3000t.
One of the best feature is how they implement the search functions in the 350c. When searching for a poi, you may just select a category, such as "gas stations". But when it returns a list of 100 gas stations, you can push "filter" and type in part of the name to narrow down the search. The 3000t did not allow this, it would return 200 gas stations and i would need to scroll down through the list to find the one I want. A better example would have been fast food. I could filter for "mcdon" to find all of the Mcdonalds in the area rather than scroll through 200 hundred fast food resturants to find all the Mcdonalds (only for the $1 double cheese burger, of course).
Even more than that, when the POI's are listed the 350c lists the distance in realtime beside each entry. The 3000t listed the distance for only the entry you have selected, so you can only see the distance for one at a time and had to scroll through to see the rest.
Customizable. The 350c allows for incredible control about what you display on the screen. You can select from a huge list of options to display on the screen, and even adjust the transparency and the display box etc... You can even tell it to only display an item wne it is valid to keep screen clutter down. The 3000t had no control over what is displayed on the screen.
Add to this that the 350c costs $450 and the 3000t costs $600 and there is no comparison. The 3000t looks nicer and has one feature that I liked better than the 350c. It completed the city name or street name for you. It also gray out keyboard entries as you typed, making data entry easier in this respect. But that was it.
One problem with the 350c is that navigation can get slow and a little unpredictable while listening to MP3's. This is a multitasking software bug that will most likely be fixed in the next release. Lowrance has provided many fixes for the 500c and they will do the same for the 350c as well. But hey, at least it has this functionality at a lower price than the competition. The competition either can't play MP3's at all, or can't play and navigate at the same time. At least there is hope with the 350c, and for less money!
I used the 350c for recent vacation and it was awesome. My wife, who was a sceptic at first is now raving about it. She could easily find a Dunkin Donuts/Starbucks whenever and wherever she wanted to, and that made it worth every penny
Conclusion: Buy the 350c and pay the $109 for the 4 year plan at Circuit City. You'll still pay less than the 3000t and now you can leave the 350c in your car on blistering hot/cold days knowing that it's covered for 4 years and not worry about it breaking. I never purchase these plans, but with a GPS it makes sense. If is breaks in a year or two, you'll get store credit and you can upgrade to the GPS/MP3/DVD/Kitchen sink model and have $200 left over.
John 3:16Updated
I had posted a positive review for the 350c, but after living with it for 4 months, and after trading it in for the Garmin Nuvi 350 (Thank God for the Circuit City replacement plan!), I need to change my recommendation.
The Nuvi 350 was over $800.00 when I wrote the review for the 350c, now Circuit City has it for $599.00. My recommendation:
Buy a Garmin if you can afford the extra few bucks, you will NOT regret it. The NUVI is awesome, it navigates flawlessly. It recalculates perfectly everytime, and FAST. It's mp3 player sorts your music by artist/album/genere. Everything on the Garmin works perfect, everything on the 350c works sloppy, slow and flawed. It takes time to notice all of this, and when comparing it to the Garmin, it becomes all that much more apparent. If you don't care about the mp3 player, get a cheaper Garmin, it will still navigate much better than the 350c.
The final straw for the 350c was when I upgraded the SW to the latest rev. It fixed MOST of the problems, but completely broke the navigation. Perhaps after one more SW release it will be a good unit for the money.Updated
I posted a good review for the 350c, but since then it seems that the performance of the satelite acquistion has gotten worse. Went to the Lowrance site and found a SW upgrade. It fixed the satelite problem. After the upgrade it locked instantly on the satelites. The upgrade fixed MANY of the problems with the 350c. I was excited about the upgrade! Until I tried to use it to navigate! Now it had me going through ponds and couldn't get me home from the local grocery store. The unit was useless after the upgrade.
Thank God for the CC upgrade plan
When I purchased the 350c, the Nuvi350 was over $800.00, now it's $599.00. CC refunded almost ALL of the money I spent on the upgrade plan, 100% of the cost of the 350c, and sold me the Nuvi for $599.00. So I actually saved a couple hundred dollars by using the 350c for 4 months and trading up to the Nuvi after they lowered the price
After using the Garmin I know why it is heralded as the best GPS in the world. It is THE BEST! It navigates perfectly, every time. It recalculates fast and perfect, every time. The iway had all the features, but it was all thumbs. It was sloppy and slow compared to the Garmin. If you can afford the $599.00, get the Nuvi 350. If you can't afford $599.00 and you don't care about mp3, get a cheaper Garmin. If you must have mp3, get the iway and pray for another SW upgrade and buy the upgrade plan from CC. With the upgrade plan you never lose. In three years when Garmin releases their latest technology for $600.00, you can get a full refund for the iway and trade it for the Garmin.Updated
I posted a good review for the 350c, but since then it seems that the performance of the satelite acquistion has gotten worse. Went to the Lowrance site and found a SW upgrade. It fixed the satelite problem. After the upgrade it locked instantly on the satelites. The upgrade fixed MANY of the problems with the 350c. I was excited about the upgrade! Until I tried to use it to navigate! Now it had me going through ponds and couldn't get me home from the local grocery store. The unit was useless after the upgrade.
Thank God for the CC upgrade plan When I purchased the 350c, the Nuvi350 was over $800.00, now it's $599.00. CC refunded almost ALL of the money I spent on the upgrade plan, 100% of the cost of the 350c, and sold me the Nuvi for $599.00. So I actually saved a couple hundred dollars by using the 350c for 4 months and trading up to the Nuvi after they lowered the price
After using the Garmin I know why it is heralded as the best GPS in the world. It is THE BEST! It navigates perfectly, every time. It recalculates fast and perfect, every time. The iway had all the features, but it was all thumbs. It was sloppy and slow compared to the Garmin. If you can afford the $599.00, get the Nuvi 350. If you can't afford $599.00 and you don't care about mp3, get a cheaper Garmin. If you must have mp3, get the iway and pray for another SW upgrade and buy the upgrade plan from CC. With the upgrade plan you never lose. In three years when Garmin releases their latest technology for $600.00, you can get a full refund for the iway and trade it for the Garmin.
Where to buy
Lowrance iWay 350c:
$629.99
| store | price | in stock? | rating |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Amazon.com Marketplace
|
$629.99 | See Site |
|
