posted 12-31-2004 05:41 PM ET (US)        

Well as it turns out, the GPS is pretty durn cool; it's my new favorite toy. The unit comes with some very basic maps, which can't be upgraded. But one of the things I liked about the Lowrance maps is that major navigational aids are on the maps. You still need paper charts, but the Lowrance maps are detailed enough so that 9 times out of 10 you can plot out a route without manually entering any numbers. Pretty cool. The maps also include information about tides and currents. You can download the entire mapset from Lowrance's web site if you want to play around with them (you're actually downloading a software emulator that works exactly like the actual unit).

I suppose if I really needed a lot of detail to plot out a route, I can use the Maptech Mapserver website to get the numbers. But I'm not sure there is going to be much need for that; not sure where I'm going to go in a 17 foot boat where I'm going to need that much detail.