Pros and Cons of the 500c

This is an adaptaion of a post MarkFeit made on http://www.sport-touring.net. Other owners should feel free to add their own.

Pros

The display is larger and easier to read in bright sunlight than the 2610 (the 2700s weren't out yet) . I hear the 2730 has improved, but not to the point where it's as good as the 276/376.

The form factor lends itself to a very neat, functional installation on my bike complete with a connection to my Autocom.

The user interface can be completely customized ("re-skinned") by the end user. This is a big plus for me. Multiple skins can be loaded on the unit at once and a quick trip through the menus switches between them. (See MotorcycleSkin for my motorcycle-specific customization.)

All of the user settings, waypoints, tracks, etc. can be dumped off to a file on the unit's disk and copied off onto a PC. If my unit is ever destroyed or stolen, I can restore the last backup to a new one. The geek in me likes that.

Cons

There are a few rough edges in the software, although my experience has been that if you're using the unit as it comes out of the box, you don't encounter them much. Most of the problems I found were during development of the skin I mentioned above, and most cases I was able to find other ways to do things. Mine has rebooted for no apparent reason once or twice, but the net effect was loss of use for half a minute and then right back to where I was, including the same spot in the MP3 I was playing.

There's no way to load a map of Europe or anywhere other than North America. The base map does include a surprising number of the major arteries in other countries, but they're not useful for navigation.

Support for doing up a route on, say Streets and Trips and getting it uploaded into the unit is lousy. This isn't a big deal for me since all I really care about knowing where I am and how to get to the closest gas and pie outlets.

The manufacturing and QC is hit-or-miss. Mine's been flawless since day one. Others have gone through two or three before they got one that worked but report that Lowrance did well by them.

-- MarkFeit - 08 Feb 2006