The Lowrance XOG is a unique Crossover Navigator works very well for regular street navigation for finding your way anywhere in the United States.
Ease of Use, Performance: 23/25, Look & Feel: 20/25,
Features 22/25, How much I enjoy 20/25
Total: 85/100
The Lowrance XOG may sound like a name for an alien but it is a very terrestrial device for finding your way anywhere in the United States. The Lowrance XOG contains street level maps for the United States for turn by turn or straight line navigation using the three screen settings. You can change the screen so the map shows a top down view with north always pointing toward the top of the device, North true to the current direction of the XOG and a 3D view that is handy for driving to a certain address.
The Lowrance XOG has a lot of nice features and one that I am not going to dwell on is the Crossover design other than to say you can do navigation other than street and maps for driving. You can download maps or use ones that come preloaded on an SD card that include topography or lake data but these do cost extra. You can download maps from the Lowrance website called MapSelect or purchase several other map types including lake maps for fishing, offshore/coastal navigation, and regional maps with high detail.
I did not receive any of these extra mapping cards or downloads so cannot say how well they work and will not comment on them, but if they are anything like the original XOG and software I am sure they will be the same high quality. The Lowrance XOG is a handy and very easy to use GPS navigator to help you find your way at street level with the preloaded US maps. You can find any major, minor and even small roads using the XOG as well as street addresses, businesses and area attractions.
I have found very small streets, stores, parks and other information just like a newer medical clinic that was built about six months ago added to the street information. The Lowrance XOG has stores, hospitals, gas stations and other places of business that is very handy to have ready to find on a handheld or car mounted navigation device.
You can even add in street addresses to the unit and store them permanently to be able to find that place again or just to have somewhere you want to find in the future such as planning a vacation. This is a real nice way to go driving and find places easily such as going on a vacation; you can find places using the preloaded data or add your own addresses and places. Even though gas prices are currently high this would be a great way to easily keep yourself on track and find street addresses or popular attractions.
You can sit at home and add in street addresses using the simple to use Find an Address feature or enter the pages of preloaded attractions, gas stations, lodging, restaurants and several other categories. When using the find feature it will calculate the nearest places in the chosen page and category for a list of destinations. Each page of destinations will be broken down by categories just like restaurants that will have Asian, Barbeque and even Banquet Rooms and so on.
The addresses can be saved for future use and you can even use the built in voice or silent turn by turn navigation to find the place you want to go to. Using the turn by turn or direct line navigation can help you find the place easily but you may want to check the route the navigator comes up with before starting out. Sometimes routes may have natural obstacles or road obstacles such as one way streets and ramps that only go a certain direction or other things that make finding a particular address difficult.
This would occur with any GPS or street navigator and I have found that they cannot all be perfect and it is very understandable. The Lowrance XOG is very handy to add information like addresses using a quick auto fill feature that guesses what you are trying to add in by using the data base included with the navigator. You start at state level and go from there with the computer on the device helping you quickly find your address.
To find my wife’s work place I added the name and the unit had no reference for it so I added the state and city and it asked for the numbers of the street address and then the name. When you are typing things like names it will wait for you to get a few of the letters up and then list all the names using that information to make typing faster.
The unit works very well for navigation and has a large data base of information for addresses of businesses and places of interest but there are other uses for the XOG. You can carry it around and use it for a portable music player and picture viewer on those trips as well. It makes a quick and convenient way to show off a few pictures to friends or family once you arrive at your destination and to have a portable music player that sounds pretty good.
You can also connect headphones or speakers to the unit using the 3.5MM audio connection as well as connect it to a cars audio system if yours has an audio in on the radio/CD player as many now do. The audio or music from the player comes out the small internal speaker that is a bit faint and would probably not work well for something like a party but if you connect a pair of headphones it sounds really good, just like a regular MP3 player.
The device also connects using the audio to external speakers just like a set of computer speakers and also sounds great, you can connect the USB connection to any handy computer for constant power as well. I tried them out with an outstanding speaker system called the mStation Orb and the sound was great, the music played just like my computer system with clear high tones and nice deep bass. The Lowrance XOG has an SD card slot so you can purchase a Secure Digital card to carry around all that music and pictures as well as those downloaded maps.
The Lowrance XOG has a 1000 point storage capacity for addresses so you have plenty of space to store spots like vacation points or even hiking spots. The nice thing about the Lowrance XOG is the internal battery that is rechargeable and lasts a good long time. You can remove the unit from your car, go on a hike or walk and use the XOG for a quick navigator or to pick spots for a nice route log. The unit will start to recharge as soon as you connect the USB cord to your computer or your cars battery through the car power adapter.
The Lowrance XOG comes with the unit with its built in map system, a mount device with suction cup and a plastic mount using tape, a car adapter and a mini USB cable for connecting to your computer. The XOG can be mounted on a bicycle or other vehicle using various mounts also available from Lowrance as well as used with the various downloadable maps or preloaded ones on SD cards.
