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| Lowrance 000-0125-03 iWay 250C 3.5-Inch Portable GPS Navigator and MP3 Player | 
 enlarge | Brand: Lowrance
Category: CE
List Price: $349.99
Buy New: $259.99
You Save: $90.00 (26%)
New (4) Used (3) from $89.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  80 reviews
Sales Rank: 15080
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Native Resolution: 320 x 240
Display Size: 3.5
Includes MP3 Player: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 3 x 4 x 1
Warranty: 1 year warranty
MPN: Iway250c
Model: Iway250c
UPC: 042194528977
EAN: 0042194528977
ASIN: B000GSQDPM
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Not bad for the price September 20, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I bought this unit to use on trips where we get a rental car. I discovered that the car rental companies charge up to $11/day to rent them. In the past, this was still considerably cheaper than buying one but with the advent of inexpensive units like the i250C, I decided the tide had turned and it made more sense to buy.
Having experience with a much more expensive factory GPS unit in my own car, I was expecting to have to consideraly lower my expectations. In some ways I was right, in others, not so much
My first impression was that it was similar to those assemble yourself items where the vendor has succeeded in significantly lowering the price by basically pushing the work to assemble or use it off to the customer. If you're in to doing these things it can be a good deal.
Here are the main issues I had:
Startup Time
It takes a long time (five minutes or more) to lock on to a signal unlike my car system which appears instantaneous (note: this may be partly due to antenna differences). After some frustration, I learned, whenever possible, to wait five minutes after turning on the unit before leaving. Otherwise it might turn out I was going in the completely wrong direction.
Accuracy
For the most part the unit was pretty accurate. However, there were times, especially in places where the are a lot of streets a short distance apart, where it would take us on quite a detour. Fortunately, given that it is designed to recalculate a course on the fly, even if it makes a miscalculation at one point, it will eventually get you to the destination. Aggravating this is the fact that it was occasionally off the mark on very short distances (e.g. turn right 200 feet ahead might actually be 20 feet). This would lead to missing turns but again, due to its self correcting nature, we would eventually get to our destination.
In general I would say this happened probably 5-10% of the time. The rest of the time it was pretty good. I also learned that it helped a lot to look at the units display on a regular basis rather than relying on the voice alone. It was far more accurate than the voice in terms of making sure I turned at the right time. The voice alone can also be confusing at times. For example, it might say "right turn in 86 miles". Not very useful. In fairness, though, even on my car system I find the need from time to check the display and not just rely on the voice.
Choosing destinations.
The user interface for choosing destinations is actually quite good given the relatively low cost of the unit. The only real complaint I had was that it did not let you choose a city to narrow down the list. Instead I had to position the map at the city of interest and then do the search. Also, the limit on the number of displayed characters of place names could be a problem when there were many names that were the same for the displayed number of characters (for example: a hotel chain will have the first n characters the same for all its hotels). My car system allows you to horizontally scroll to see long names.
Distance indication
This behavior may be good or bad depending on your outlook. When you enter a destination,once the display screen is updated, it only appears to show destination to the next turn. If you told your wife this was going to be a 20 mile trip and its really 200 miles, this could be a good thing. Otherwise, when you arrive at the 20 mile point and suddenly the display changes and says another 50 miles,etc. it could be frustrating. Since I bought this only for vacations where supposedly one doesn't worry too much about distances, it was not a significant issue for me but could be for some.
In summary, I think this is a pretty good unit for the price as long as you adjust your behavior to compensate for the slow signal acquisition time and are not in a great hurry to reach your destination.
 Life Saver September 13, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I use to panic when traveling long distance,but this GPS helped me relax and enjoy my trip. This summer i took three trips, each one was over five hours. The Lowrance iWay 250C was on point with every single turn. Even if you take a wrong turn it puts you back on the right route. Why buy an expensive GPS, that blacks out while passing through tunnels, or under paths. I am very satisfied and I love my GPS.
Great Features and Functionality for the Price September 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I always marvel at the 'love-hate' variations from user to user on product reviews. In my case, the 250C has performed quite well with functionality and features comparable to the last Garmin I owned (passed down to my daughter). Trying to be realistic and balanced there are things I like more and less about this GPS:
Pro:
*Excellent 2D display w/ variable map scaling. At freeway speeds, the display extends about 11 miles; as you slow, the scale shrinks down to 200'.
*The touchscreen works well (use your finger nail or the included stylis - don't fat-finger it)
*No more irritating "Re-calculating" nag that Garmin thinks is cute when you ignore the GPS instructions.
*Very fast route recalculation when you deviate
*Great NavTeq map software
Con:
*The initial satellite synchronization is slower than Garmin, but hardly painful (typically I will lock on 6 satellites)
*Until you configure the display to meet personal preferences, it is possible to have "too much" information on the screen
*The screen by screen navigation for selecting options/destinations could stand some improvement.
All in all a fine GPS aid that reflects a heck of a value. I'm clearly cheap, but still 'discerning' in my buying decisions.
A good GPS September 7, 2007
This is a good GPS for this price. It may takes a while to sync sometimes and the battery life is short. But it has a lot of options and informations when you compare with more expensive GPS.
 bad bad very bad..DON'T LOSE YOUR MONEY!! September 4, 2007
1 out of 5 found this review helpful
i bought this item last month.i was be fooled. yeah its cheap but if you are going to buy this i suggest you to add some money and go for garmin or you will get Mio with same budget.
this is a toy not a navigation unit. so dont buy for navigation.
in sunlight you can hardly see the screen.very bad.
heavy unit compair to another navigation units.
Re-routing is slow. Very slow. Weighs one bazillion pounds! Don't be fooled. This is not a touch screen.It also requires a stylus instead of finger touch-point for accuracy on the screen.
It's a "mash your finger really hard into the screen" touch screen. It's technically a "pressure sensing screen". UGH!
It's NOT user friendly at all. And even after reading the entire manual and supposedly setting up the GPS, it STILL didn't work correctly.
It takes very long for the product to connect to the satellites. So, you have to wait sometimes 8 minutes before it starts navigating.
This navigational system is useless.
Third, it does have a built-in mp3 player but it might as well not have it. The sound is pretty bad. And if, heaven forbid, you try to play music while it's in the process of making ANY calculation whatsoever, the sound gets worse and the calculation gets much slower.
DONT LOSE YOUR MONEY GO FOR MIO OR GARMINE.
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