Lowrance Endura Sierra - GPS receiver

• Average user rating: 2.5 stars out of 4 reviews
• My rating: 0 stars

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• 8 stars

  Affordable touchscreen with detailed mapping for US

  by rango037 on February 2, 2010

  Pros: First, you will never pay $549 for this product. I picked it up on the web for $425. Easy to learn. Has mapping for all US with 100 ft contours. All the bells and whistles you would expect with a high-end handheld GPS, compass, altimeter.

  Cons: Started off very bad which had bad initial reviews. Two software updates later and this product is solid and reliable. Lowrance is not well known in this market but if you are like me and don't like Garmin, they are a great choice.

  Summary: Garmin has needed a solid competitor to truly challenge them for years. Lowrance just may be that up and coming competitor with the Endura series. The onboard AccuTerra mapping is ...

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  Summary: Garmin has needed a solid competitor to truly challenge them for years. Lowrance just may be that up and coming competitor with the Endura series. The onboard AccuTerra mapping is very good with detailed lake shoreline, rivers, topo contours every 100ft change in elevation and a ton of relevent POI's. Even includes preloaded trails for national and state parks.
  
  Don't be fooled by some of the original product images. They depicted the Sierra to have high quality hill shade at usable zoom levels but that really only applies to when you add the AccuTerra add-on regional cards. Besides this and being over hyped initially, it still has better mapping than I have seen on the Garmin Oregon's and other comparibly priced GPS products. DeLorme is pretty good but they need to break away from their 2.2" screens so those over 25 can actually read them..
  
  I actually first saw the Sierra mentioned in Backpacker magazine and what caught my eye is that all 2600 trails on Backpacker.com will work on this GPS for free without changing trail file formats and the Sierra can record trails and upload them to Backpacker.com as well with elevation detail. After using it, it does work perfectly for this.
  
  Lowrance customer service in the past has, well, been dissappointing at a minimum. Something must have changed with them as they seem to be hungry to win back market share and are providing better customer service than I have seen from them in years. One good thing is customer service is actually in the US (no talking to some person in the orient or India named Chuck).
  
  Frequent product software updates and recent positive reviews on the web helps prove that Lowrance wants satisfied customers and intends to provide the support needed to keep them that way.

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  1 out of 1 users found this user opinion helpful.

• 7 stars

  I love this GPS when it works.

  by OutdoorEnthusiast on October 21, 2010

  Pros: I like the fact it has all the maps preloaded. Locks onto Satellites within a minute. This was a gift for my wife and she needed something simple. She teaches a high school geology class and it comes in handy for finding where they want to go.

  Cons: Quit working after several months. Sent in on a Tuesday and received a new one on the following Wednesday. I think Mp player and picture viewer is a waste. The touch screen is a bit quirky.

  Summary: I have had a Global Map 100 unit made by Lowrance for 10 years with no problem, so I chose the Lowrance brand for my newest GPS. Was disappointed it ...

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  Summary: I have had a Global Map 100 unit made by Lowrance for 10 years with no problem, so I chose the Lowrance brand for my newest GPS. Was disappointed it quit working so soon after I bought it. Lowrance had a new one for me within 1 week. I am hoping they have fixed the reliability issues with this GPS. If the unit had not failed I would have given it 4 1/2 stars.

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• 2 stars

  Lowrance customer service is not good

  by NCarolinaHiker on September 21, 2010

  Pros: Bright display, front buttons easy to use.

  Cons: Very bad battery life, many trails missing or wrong in the map, many roads missing or wrong in the map, worst customer service ever experienced.

  Summary: I bought this GPS in June of 2010 and was disappointed because it has so many map errors and missing trails and roads. It's the worst map on the ...

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  Summary: I bought this GPS in June of 2010 and was disappointed because it has so many map errors and missing trails and roads. It's the worst map on the market that I am aware of. There is no way to edit the map data, to enter corrections (other GPS's have that feature). Battery life is very bad, between 6 and 7 hours using duracell batteries. The "touch" screen is awkward to use, and results in unexpected operation sometimes. If the included screen protector is applied, then the "touch" feature no longer works.
  Here's the real abd news:
  My Endura Sierra (top of the line model) died in less than 3 months. It took 3 weeks to get return authorization number from Lowrance. They told me "2 weeks turnaround", but it was returned on September 2nd 2010 and now they tell me they can not get it back to me until END OF DECEMBER 2010. In all my years, I've never encountered such poor service. Reaching a human at Lowrance is a challenge, and once you do, they don't appear to understand issues explained to them, and they don't seem to care. My unit kept "forgetting" its calibration, and it took 4 weeks to get somebody at Lowrance who understood the issue, and they told me "It is a bug and will eventually be fixed."
  I strongly recommend looking at other brands, because Lowrance customer service is so bad. Even if it was the best GPS in the world, I would not buy their product ever again.

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• 4 stars

  Many Map Omissions and Mistakes, poor battery life

  by E-DudeInDMajor on September 13, 2010

  Pros: Nice display
  Easy to operate
  Accepts up to 32GB memory

  Cons: MANY streets missing from map.
  Some street errors/mistakes on map.
  MANY trails missing from map.
  Tech support difficult to reach.
  Poor battery life.

  Summary: Purchased Endura Sierra in May 2010. NO streets in my neighborhood (9 years old) are on the maps. Have submitted this info to Navteq numerous times over the past 4 ...

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  Summary: Purchased Endura Sierra in May 2010. NO streets in my neighborhood (9 years old) are on the maps. Have submitted this info to Navteq numerous times over the past 4 years, but streets remain missing. In my travels, I have discovered numerous other streets missing, and some marked in wrong place.
  When hiking, this GPS is almost useless. My 6 year old Delorme has much better trail information. The Endura omits many trails.
  This device has already been back to the factory for repair, because it booted into a "touch screen calibration" routine, and thereafter would not display ANY maps, nor the menu pages. It took over 4 weeks to get it back.
  The device comes with a screen protector (plastic), but if applied, the touch screen no longer works.
  The battery door is very difficult to close when installing/replacing batteries.
  Boot-up time averages about 46 seconds....is slower than competitors devices.
  With device sitting on table in a good coverage area (no trees, etc), the "speed" is reported to be between 1 to 3 MPH. Not a big deal, but competitors devices don't do that.
  About once a week the device asks for the elevation to be calibrated....seems to forget/lose previous calibration.
  The build-in picture viewer is useless.
  Given the already poor battery life, why does this device have an MP3 player in it??? If using that, battery life is reduced to a couple hours. A GPS does not need such "bells and whistles", in my opinion. Just so you know, I use 2800mA/hr NiMH batteries, and average maybe 6 hours of operation. Using top-of-the-line Alkaline batteries gave me maybe 7+ hours of operation. I also own 1 Garmin and 1 Delorme handheld GPS devices, and each gives me better than 10 reliable hours with the NiMH batteries I use. And their maps are FAR superior, which in my opinion is the most important issue.
  
  In summary, I am not satisfied with this Lowrance device because:
  * It has poor maps -- the worst of any GPS I have used.
  * Battery life is very poor.
  * Lowrance tech support is difficult to contact
  * The Lowrance web site is fairly uselsee
  * The device is expensive, thus should be superior to others

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