how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

I don't know but I think I'm going to try it. I requested a GPS for x-mas, sort of hinted for the Magellan hand held, but I got the Lowrance instead. From what I understand this was in the same price range as the lower priced handheld Magellan. This is a crossover unit. I got it for a christmas gift. I read alot good reviews about it but I've also read some scary ones too. The battery life isn't rated very good but I don't plan on going anywhere with it unplugged.

I heard that a "lake chip" (right or something else), anyhow I heard a lake chip can be added to the unit. I'm new to GPS, I'm thinking there is a difference between downloading a lake map and buying a lake chip.

Am I right?

One fact about it that I read is that it has a higher pixel rating then other similar GPS units. Another is that you can use it with Google Earth, but I don't know what good that would be, unless you can use google earth as a pinpoint map.

Any tips or personal opinions about this unit are welcome.

I haven't even plugged it up yet, I've opened the box but haven't turned it on. From what I see it is a new unit and it doesn't have many accessories out for it yet. Another thing that I'm wondering is can there be patches for any glitches brought out to fix the problem if there is one?

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

It takes Navionics or lowrance maps. Its a good unit but dont get it wet its not waterproof. Also make sure you get a charger for it in the boat as the battery only lasts about 2.5hrs. and as a tip it uses the same charger as the Motorola Razrs so get one from wally world for like $10 instead of the $30 they will try to sell you. Lowrance has free lake maps but they dont have most lakes. make sure if you buy a chip look to make sure that chip has the lakes you boat on.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

xxturbowesxx said:

It takes Navionics or lowrance maps. Its a good unit but dont get it wet its not waterproof. Also make sure you get a charger for it in the boat as the battery only lasts about 2.5hrs. and as a tip it uses the same charger as the Motorola Razrs so get one from wally world for like $10 instead of the $30 they will try to sell you. Lowrance has free lake maps but they dont have most lakes. make sure if you buy a chip look to make sure that chip has the lakes you boat on.

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Thanks xx. I'll look for the Razr charger next time I'm at Walmart. It comes with one cigarette lighter charger, but if I get another I wont half to worry about swapping it out. I'll do my best not to get it wet, thought about building a stand for it out of lexan glass for the helm on my boat.

Now coming from one person's review on the Lowrance X0G compared to a similar magellan (he bought both at one time), he said "the lowrance actually did not make up any new routes after missing the turn that he purposely missed". Then I read completely different review and it said that "it will reroute you to the next available turn" or something like that. I was thinking that if this is true about the lowrance that it might be a glitch that might be able to be fixed. But being I'm new to GPS, I guess I shouldn't be speaking about software patches or whatever. I just plugged it in and turned it on, so far it is neat. Already found my street when using the search feature, I still have alot to learn on this.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

Get a waterproof bag for it. They are cheap. And as to the chip don't spend $149 for the current Navionics chip since you can buy one new or used off ebay for probably $49 for the 2006 or 2007 chips. The lakes don't change all that much from year to year! I have the Navionics Hotmaps chip.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

wildmaninal said:

Now coming from one person's review on the Lowrance X0G compared to a similar magellan (he bought both at one time), he said "the lowrance actually did not make up any new routes after missing the turn that he purposely missed". Then I read completely different review and it said that "it will reroute you to the next available turn" or something like that. I was thinking that if this is true about the lowrance that it might be a glitch that might be able to be fixed. But being I'm new to GPS, I guess I shouldn't be speaking about software patches or whatever.

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I'm not a GPS guy either, but from what I have seen with most units, there should be a configuration setting somewhere to switch how it "looks at" routes. The ones I have seen that friends have, they usually have something like shortest distance, shortest time, etc. Those settings will change whether or not it re-routes you right away or waits for a better course. Driving to Washington state from Canada we had this happen and I had to play around with different settings while my buddy was driving and sometimes waited for up to 5 minutes before we got a new route. I'd be willing to bet the first guy was impatient or there wasn't really a suitable re-route for the GPS. Also, IMHO, if you're following a route on a GPS and see you missed a turn... common sense usually says to pull a u-ball when it's safe and get back to that turn. I'd even do that if I was following a paper map route.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

Expidia said:

Get a waterproof bag for it. They are cheap. And as to the chip don't spend $149 for the current Navionics chip since you can buy one new or used off ebay for probably $49 for the 2006 or 2007 chips. The lakes don't change all that much from year to year! I have the Navionics Hotmaps chip.

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I'm looking into just possibly ordering a map for a single lake for right now, or maybe even just the lakes for Alabama. So far I found just Weiss lake for $15, but I'm not for sure what type of map file it is. Good suggestion for the waterproof bag. If it comes down to it, I might (I say might) be taking some items back that I received for christmas, so I could possibly use the money towards the hotmaps chips for the south.

SuzukiChopper said:

I'm not a GPS guy either, but from what I have seen with most units, there should be a configuration setting somewhere to switch how it "looks at" routes. The ones I have seen that friends have, they usually have something like shortest distance, shortest time, etc. Those settings will change whether or not it re-routes you right away or waits for a better course. Driving to Washington state from Canada we had this happen and I had to play around with different settings while my buddy was driving and sometimes waited for up to 5 minutes before we got a new route.

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So far this is the neatest thing I've seen for traveling .

I'd be willing to bet the first guy was impatient or there wasn't really a suitable re-route for the GPS. Also, IMHO, if you're following a route on a GPS and see you missed a turn... common sense usually says to pull a u-ball when it's safe and get back to that turn. I'd even do that if I was following a paper map route.

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Funny you should say that, because on the one review I mentioned earlier, he said "the Lowrance kept trying to have me make a U Turn". I also figure it was lack of patients (as you mentioned) on his part. He did give alot of thumbs up on the Lowrance when compared to the Magellan, but like I may have mentioned he ended up sticking with the Magellan.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

wildmaninal said:

Funny you should say that, because on the one review I mentioned earlier, he said "the Lowrance kept trying to have me make a U Turn". I also figure it was lack of patients (as you mentioned) on his part. He did give alot of thumbs up on the Lowrance when compared to the Magellan, but like I may have mentioned he ended up sticking with the Magellan.

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With some units that's just the way it is until you get too far past a certain threshold of what they feel is reasonable for a u-turn. I'm more then sure you'll absolutely love the unit as you figure out more and more features of it and play with it more.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

SuzukiChopper said:

With some units that's just the way it is until you get too far past a certain threshold of what they feel is reasonable for a u-turn. I'm more then sure you'll absolutely love the unit as you figure out more and more features of it and play with it more.

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I hear ya. So far it is pretty accurate on main roads, but as far as the road I live on the addresses are way off. We went to a couple of places and the turn by turn was dead on, and thats set on meduim setting.

We was heading to the mall, so out of curiousity I looked in the find attractions and pulled up the cinema that I knew was located at the mall, it went right to it with no flaws. It even suggested the normal route we take when heading towards the highway when just simulating a route.

Still checking around on the lake map or maps, haven't decided on that yet.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

All this talk of GPS units the last few days reminded me my daughter, whom had mine, told me my Garmin flashed a screen requiring it to be hooked up to a computer and updated.

So with that in mind, I went and got it from her house tonight. After doing much research I found lots of goodies for it but, also found out mine is not compatible for lake maps...

After about an hour of playing with it, I found I could delete a great deal of data from it's memory by getting rid of all the extra languages which I figure I will never need.

I also found several things I could add to it like different icons and voices. I'll return it to her house tomorrow with this added voice and I can not wait for her to use it when she gets back from Florida. It will freak her out.

I am such an evil person...Muuhahaha

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

UnregisteredUser said:

All this talk of GPS units the last few days reminded me my daughter, whom had mine, told me my Garmin flashed a screen requiring it to be hooked up to a computer and updated.

So with that in mind, I went and got it from her house tonight. After doing much research I found lots of goodies for it but, also found out mine is not compatible for lake maps...

After about an hour of playing with it, I found I could delete a great deal of data from it's memory by getting rid of all the extra languages which I figure I will never need.

I also found several things I could add to it like different icons and voices. I'll return it to her house tomorrow with this added voice and I can not wait for her to use it when she gets back from Florida. It will freak her out.

I am such an evil person...Muuhahaha

Click to expand...

That sucks that you can't load lake maps on it. I finally got Lowrance's website to pull up, I found out that there is an update for the XOG as well. If things go right I'll have an SD chip tomorrow where I can do the update and add my free map to my favorite fishing hole. I got lucky and found Weiss Lake on Lowrance.com, just hope that it works. I found out that this GPS will only hold up to a 2 gig SD card, I went by radio shack (which had a sale on them), they told me the 4 gig would not work for mine, but the 2 gig would. Figures that they were out, then I checked the neighboring walmart and they were out as well, so I called our other walmart and they said they have them in stock.

Re: how cool is this Lowrance X0G GPS going to be?

Sorry had to bump this up......I'm itching to know what software I should be looking out for to customize my lake map and maybe even road maps. I downloaded "Easy GPS" which is free but it isn't that easy (to me), and I'm a little confused on how it's supposed to work. If Easy GPS isn't recommended for marking fishing holes, naming/marking certain locations which I would like to do.....What software should I be looking for? Where can I find it? Prefferably a cheap program and something I might not half to go online for but maybe someone can point me to a place that I might be able to go to in town. What kind of success have you had with using software to do what you wanted to do?

So far I'm pleased with the GPS, still haven't updated the road maps, I did do the software update. Was trying to find out how fast my 4 wheeler would go but I wasn't fixing to take one hand off of the handle bar to pick up the GPS and find out, I've got to fabricate a mount for the 4 wheeler as well as the boat. I plan on using lexan glass to build a mounting bracket at least on the boat.