I was at a sporting goods store the other day and the guy was showing my the new iFinder Pro gps made by Lowrance. The unit was only $189 and had a chip that held something like 560 mega bytes of info, the mapping software was much more detailed than most I've seen. The unit also had excellent reception inside the store and locked on very quickly to the satellites, which he said was due to the fact that Lowrance has a special contract with the company that puts up the satellites to use a wider range of satellites. I have the Garmin Legend and I am pleased with the unit, but this unit seamed to blow mine out of the water. I'm just trying to get some more info on this unit, all that glitters isn't always gold, so I know there must be some downside to this unit.
ifinder pro benefits that I noticed
1. Larger screen than my Legend
2. Lower price
3. Mapping software goes directly onto unit and doesn't require cd roms or a computer
4. Extemely good detail, for any town you could find any business along with address, phone numbers and directions.
5. All lakes had water depths and fish locations in the lake
Thanks again for any info. Jason

Hey JasonF,
I'm the man to talk to about Lowrance. I have been researching their units versus Garmin for the last 2 months. I was originally going to get an Extrex Legend.

Here we go....

The Lowrance 'iFinder Pro' is NOT waterproof, ..if you want a waterproof version, then go with the 'iFinder H20' (coming out on June 21st). I just pre-oredered it. They are both the same GPS unit but the 'iFInder H20' is waterproof. The 'iFinder H20' is almost $100 (cdn) more than the 'iFinder Pro' (therefore if you want 'waterproofness' it'll cost more than you're Garmin Legend). The iFinder Pro comes with a waterproof bag, but I have read from alot of people that the bags can rip with medium pressure applied.

So when comparing your Garmin versus the iFinder Pro, "waterproofness" if the main difference. Then there's the points you menioned....

If you want to compare the iFinder Pro and iFinder H20 to a similiar Garmin product then it would be the Garmin 'GPSMap 76' (http://www.garmin.com/products/gpsmap76/).

Some people think that Lowrance products are only marine products, but this is untrue. Yes, some of their 'best selling' products are marine products, but alot of their other products don't fit under the 'Marine umbrella'.

The good about Lowrance:
- internal memory (though Lowrance has not mentioned how much memory, I asked them directly and they just replied and said whats's on their site).
- loads of external memory (MMC cards). They were the first to do this in a GPS unit.
- external antenna capability (optional)
- 16 level greyscale (most others are only 4 grey scale)
- double the resolution (great detail)
- 3 inch screen
- loads of customiziable options.
- mapping ability (you can download maps to an MMC card or buy an MMC card with detail maps hard-coded on it).
- After reading lots of reviews, the patch antenna seems to be the best patch antenna around. Can even get a signal inside a house, which is rare for other patch antennas.
- Comes packaged with a cigarette lighter adapter.
- Dual processors for higher speed screen updates and scrolling
- can plan 100 routes with 1000 waypoints each (on the internal memory)
- excellent reviews everywhere (for the iFinder and iFinder Pro with the exception of it not being waterproof which is taken care of now with the new iFinder H20).
- Latest technology, just coming out on June 21st.

The bad about Lowrance;
- not too well known yet, but they will be. They just recently came down to the consumer market.
- doesn't come packaged with any PC connections.
- if you buy an MMC card (i.e. external memory), you need to take it out of the iFinder Pro and put it in a card reader to down routes/waypoints from your PC, then put the MMC card back in your iFinder Pro. You do the same thing when downloading iFinder Pro software updates from you PC.
- need to buy an 'MMC card reader' to download routes/waypoints/etc. from your PC to your MMC card (this is different than the 'PC data cable' you can buy).
- the 'PC data cable' is only used to "upload" you map coordinates from the iFinder Pro to a laptop or PC. You cannot download trails/routes to the iFinder Pro using the 'PC data cable'.
- bigger unit than the Etrex Legend (not sure if this is a bad thing since you get a bigger screen).

I'm not a spokesman for Lowrance or anything, I'm just a 'electronic gadget junkie' that wants the best 'bang for my buck'.

Me, I like the fact that it has external memory, it's waterproof (iFinder H20) and it has a big screen with great detail.

Best of Luck, ...can wait for mine to arrive! I have even more thoughts/info, but I think this is enough for now.

If you have any more questions, just reply to this post, ...I check at least a couple of times a day.

Wow! Lots of great information. I think I will keep my Legend for a couple more seasons, but the Lowrance definitly seams like the way to go in the future.

I'm not quit sure how the iFinder Pro works but the salesman was saying that for $15 dollars he would load any of the mapping software onto my chip to avoid having to buy any programs, is this possible?

I love gadgets myself but really never had considered a Lowrance product when I bought my Garmin last fall, Thanks for the heads up :)

'm not quit sure how the iFinder Pro works but the salesman was saying that for $15 dollars he would load any of the mapping software onto my chip to avoid having to buy any programs, is this possible?


JasonF,
Yes, it can be done. He's talking about loading maps onto your 'external' memory (MMC card), but this means you would need to buy an MMC memory card. I don't think I'd ask 'if this is possible', but 'is this legal'? Not sure if this is on the 'up and up' since I have never heard any dealers doing this. From what I've seen, you either buy the mapping software and a MMC card so you can transfer your map/route from the mapping software on your PC to the MMC card (and put the MMC card into the iFinder Pro), ....or you buy an MMC card with hard-coded maps on it (and put the MMC card into your iFinder Pro).

But then again, ...for $15.00 you won't need the MapCreate software ($112.00 Cdn), or the MMC card reader ($63.00 Cdn) or even a PC cause you'll already have the maps you want on your MMC card. So for $15.00 you'll save yourself some money, but if you want more maps later on, you'll have to buy this stuff (i.e. MapCreate software and an MMC card reader) or go back to the sales guy for more maps. Not sure if he'll do it again, since he might have done it once to get you to buy the iFinder Pro.

Also, not sure how many maps he'll put on your MMC card, ...if it's unlimited, I would get with the biggest MMC card and jam it full of maps for your surrounding area. Also, the MapCreate software is for the "whole" USA, ...so he'll only copy a small potion of it for you (there's no MMC card big enough to hold all the USA maps). So if you want to travel all over the USA, then I'd get the MapCreate software, ...if you're just staying around your state, then I would go with the $15.00 and buy a big MMC card.

Always glad to help....

I was thinking the same thing, it would be nice to save the money on the software, but then again you never know when you might want to add some additional map software which you would own. The way I understood it is that this sporting goods place would load whatever parts of the software you wanted for $15, and then if you wanted to reload different areas they would do it for an additional $15. The sporting goods store I was at was not one that I usually go to, I just happened to have a gift certificate there, so I don't know how on the up in up they are. Thanks again