How Did I ever Navigate without this?

I'm a researcher when I'm buying something new maybe too much so, but the Lowrance iWay 500c is by far one of the best products I bought myself in recent years.

After unpacking my Lowrance and aquainting myself with it for an hour or so while loading it with MP3s I attached the unit to my windshield, plugged in the power cord, and hit the road from New Jersey to Charleston SC with no back up maps. Within 30 seconds, I had acquired a satellite signal, and had a plotted route to my sisters door.

Throughout the first leg of my trip (I stopped in Washington DC my first night) I aquainted myself with the features of the unit. There were occasions that I lost satellite reception briefly but the unit re-establishes it almost immediately. Turn-by-turn directions were precise and correct, as were the routes it created, and the position on the map was incredibly accurate. I used both antenna on my initial trip and the units inboard antenna ONLY on my way home). During road construction outside of Washington the automatic routing function quickly calculated a new route to get me back on its original course. Having preloaded maps of North America was a huge plus for me since I really appreciate a unit which is basically plug and play. The unit itself is very easy and intuitive to learn and use I absolutely love the touch screen. Still the handy easy to understand spiral bound direction book is just great thinking on Lowrances part.

MP3s! Who thought of this? Id like to shake his (or her) hand. whats a rod trip without some great driving music? With half its huge 20gig Hard drive dedicated to MP3 files its easy to take your favorite tunes on the road with you. While you can play MP3 files through the power adapter's speaker, which serves double duty for the directions and audible alerts, the sound quality is what you'd expect from a single speaker: quiet and underpowered. I have since installed the wiring pack included with the unit and have the sound hooked directly into my Ford Escapes stereo. Let me tell you... turn by turn directions playing through my speakers while pausing the music from the units MP3 player makes every trip worry free and enjoyable.

You also get a suction cup mounting system, soft cloth cover to protect the screen when not in use, an AC adapter, a USB cable for transferring music files at home, a 12-volt car adapter with built-in speaker and volume control, and an auxiliary wiring harness for hooking up the iWay 500c to your car stereo system, and a AC/DC converter to plug the unit in when your in the house loading music or loading FREE!!! upgrades from Lowrance's website