My general question is this: Are they, or are they not making leaps and bounds in user-friendliness / intuitiveness and screen advancements now and in the last 3 years?
My situation is this: Have a Lowrance I-Finder which I got 2 or 3 years back. Also paid another $100 for the "Freedom Maps" for Okla/Tex/Louis/Ark, etc. area of the US, for more detail on streams, topography & such.
Now, this GPS device has a lot of great features. BUT, it's terribly non-intuitive & disorganized from a big picture perspective. Without the book, it's pretty hopeless, and I have to review the book regularly to remember how to access various menus and features.
Now, my I-phone also has a GPS, and it's many many times more intutive / user friendly in terms of zooming in & out, menus, screen, etc. So now I'm spoiled by today's smartphones.
But, problem is, some of the places I'll be hunting this fall have no signal for AT&T; plus, I don't get the elevation topography lines on the I-phone like I do from the freedom maps.
So, bottom line, my Lowrance I-finder is say, perhaps 5% of the intuitiveness / user-friendliness / ability to figure out features and how to use them without the manual, if you consider the I-phone to be 100%. Maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.
So, are TODAY's 2010 GPS units available from Lowrance, Garmin, and others, would you say, closer to 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 90% of the intuitiveness of modern smartphones like Android phones and I-phone?
I.e. Worth upgrading now or not? Are they leaps and bounds above those sold 3 years ago, not in strict GPS-features terms (like accuracy, detail, waypoints & trails, etc.), but things that I mention (intuitiveness), plus screen size and brightness/viewability in bright light (that's important), battery life, processing speed, seamless integration with desktops/laptops, etc., etc?
Thanks!
My situation is this: Have a Lowrance I-Finder which I got 2 or 3 years back. Also paid another $100 for the "Freedom Maps" for Okla/Tex/Louis/Ark, etc. area of the US, for more detail on streams, topography & such.
Now, this GPS device has a lot of great features. BUT, it's terribly non-intuitive & disorganized from a big picture perspective. Without the book, it's pretty hopeless, and I have to review the book regularly to remember how to access various menus and features.
Now, my I-phone also has a GPS, and it's many many times more intutive / user friendly in terms of zooming in & out, menus, screen, etc. So now I'm spoiled by today's smartphones.
But, problem is, some of the places I'll be hunting this fall have no signal for AT&T; plus, I don't get the elevation topography lines on the I-phone like I do from the freedom maps.
So, bottom line, my Lowrance I-finder is say, perhaps 5% of the intuitiveness / user-friendliness / ability to figure out features and how to use them without the manual, if you consider the I-phone to be 100%. Maybe not that bad, but you get the idea.
So, are TODAY's 2010 GPS units available from Lowrance, Garmin, and others, would you say, closer to 10%, 25%, 50%, 75%, or 90% of the intuitiveness of modern smartphones like Android phones and I-phone?
I.e. Worth upgrading now or not? Are they leaps and bounds above those sold 3 years ago, not in strict GPS-features terms (like accuracy, detail, waypoints & trails, etc.), but things that I mention (intuitiveness), plus screen size and brightness/viewability in bright light (that's important), battery life, processing speed, seamless integration with desktops/laptops, etc., etc?
Thanks!
