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Lowrance Endura Sierra GPS Review

Hi ray

Valuable review. What NOT to buy.

{rant}
That's what happens when the marketing department works by committee - you get every conceivable bit of useless electronic junk jammed into the box. When will these guys realise that when someone wants a GPS, that's what they want - not a complete circus tent?
{/rant}

Cheers

Edited by rcaffin on 12/22/2009 15:16:24 MST.

"That's what happens when the marketing department works by committee... When will these guys realise that when someone wants a GPS, that's what they want - not a complete circus tent?"

Methinks you've got Sales and Marketing confused. Sales wants to put a GPS into the hands of everyone who wants one and can pay for it.

In the interest of ever-increasing earnings growth which stockholders demand, Marketing's job is to "increase the pie" by convincing people that they need a circus tent and not just a GPS.

By and large, Marketing usually succeeds. :)

Great review Ray,

Think I will stick with my old trusty 60CSX

Cheers

I bring an iPod/MP3 player on some trips as well as a GPS. Combining these would be nice but inevitably when these combination take place compromises have to happen and each feature suffers somewhat. I suspect this unit is suffering from many compromises.

Hi Ben

> Methinks you've got Sales and Marketing confused.
Yeah, you might be right. Sigh.

Cheers
(the circus jester)

Ray,
Thank you for the valuable work on this review. Is there any chance of your reviewing the Garmin Foretrex 301 or 401?
Sam Farrington, Chocorua NH

Ray - good review.

Rog/Ben -

electronic business: add features -> marketing -> sales -> repeat

targeted customer: grab new -> toss old -> repeat

All -

For me, electronic gadgets can create unpleasant 'noise' and therefore lessen the benefits of some backpacking activities. I'm not a Luddite, but am actually working on texting and drawing with a pencil to record some hikes. I've found this low-tech product to be refreshing. Try it sometime.

I'm not sure I get this. Isn't there free software that generates route files? Is it that you can't load a gpx file into the GPS from a computer?

Thanks guys,

Hey Keith,

It takes downloaded GPX files with no problem. Drag-and-drop simple. Works for routes and geo-caches quite well. I was talking about making my own routes. I have not seen any "free" GPX topo programs out there. There are some free front ends, or transfer programs, but they all want you to buy the mapping software.

Which is fine, Lowrance sells it too. I reviewed what they sent me.

I spend a lot of time in Minnesota and they are big there with the fishing folks. I hope they continue to refine their GPS units towards our use. Competition is good...

Very nice review. Makes my Cheapie $100, 5 year old Magellan look pretty good. I was actually wanting to check this GPS out, I think perhaps I will skip it.
Again, nice very informative review.