silverking wrote:Lengthy thread on FMT on Microskiff.com. Lot of favorable reviews. Haven't used it myself but don't care for the marketing approach.
Obvious cons:
Expensive
Depends on someone else establishing tracks
Displays need to be larger to get full effect
Limited coverage for many areas
Tracks allow access and more pressure on fish sanctuaries
Minimizes navigation skills
Obvious cons:
Expensive
Depends on someone else establishing tracks
Displays need to be larger to get full effect
Limited coverage for many areas
Tracks allow access and more pressure on fish sanctuaries
Minimizes navigation skills[/quote]
I apologize in advance for the long first post on this site but we aim to set the record straight and some detailed explanation would be helpful.
ISLA is not expensive when all things are considered so I think your assertion otherwise is specious. I think it’s the best value in the market when everything is taken into account. To get the entire state of Florida covered via a different chart product it is not a substantive difference in total price but it is a different total value. The "premium" charts you can run do not cover the entire State of Florida on one chip. To cover all of the State of Florida two or three chips would be required depending on the ones you may choose. And if you do that you still get a small fraction of the approximate 60 GB of data ISLA provides for all of Florida. You would also get low res imagery marketed as hi res so it all goes fuzzy when zoomed, photos of plain white clouds for miles in different places, and basically just NOAA map data with user provided depth contours. You also get a chart which shows you running on land when you are floating in several feet and that is very common all over the State. Additionally, you would get no imagery for most of the interior of the State, no tracks other than the ICW, thousands of missing markers and signs and posts and much of the data they do show is completely inaccurate. To obtain just all of the ISLA tracks alone for FL, would cost tens of thousands of dollars and years of charters to replicate. It's not opinion. It all well documented fact and can be proven with any side by side comparison. Considering all of that, most that actually know consider the general reference gps chart options to be an inferior value as you get so much less for about the same money to cover the entire State. Also, if you buy two or three chips to cover all of Florida, you would have to buy a separate update for each chip every year vs. only $119 to update all of FL with ISLA. What you do get a lot more of for your money with what you run is uncertainty when navigating in unfamiliar areas or running in poor light. So all of that considered, ISLA is clearly a much better value by actual users that have switched. Many actually have posted that they feel it’s the best boating money they have ever spent. I don't think you will find many positive comments like that with a G3 vision card or a Plat+ card. The blogs are full of exactly the opposite with hundreds of boaters weighing in and over many years as well.
As for coverage in Florida, ISLA is the most detailed, most accurate and highest resolution gps chart product ever created and the entire State is covered in far greater detail than any govt. based chart you can run. All of the creeks are tracked on ISLA from Steinhatchee east and the ones not already charted west of Steinhatchee will be fully covered/updated within the next 4 to 5 months. I am not sure what you mean by limited coverage but if ISLA has what you would consider limited data in an area, you can rest assured the general reference chart options are no better and likely totally useless such as what you would find at Steinhatchee, the base of the Skyway bridge (south) and most of the Homosassa area. If you want to see for yourself there is a video of it you can watch which shows both in action posted. Part 1 of 3 and Part 2 of 3 for the NFL update clearly shows the difference in an apples to apples comparison. Steinhatchee is about 40 mins into Part 2. Take a look for yourself. It's a shocking difference. And that is Plat+. Many say G2 or G3 is worse that Plat + for most places. Everything is relative and the big bend inshore areas have far better representation and coverage on ISLA than anything you can currently run in your GPS. It is not even remotely close.
As for display size, actual hi res imagery looks better on more capable screens that have better resolution. That is just the way it works. Small screens can have 2.5 to 3x+ inferior resolution to more capable units and bigger units. The reason your Garmin controlled charts work the same on all of the screens is because the charts are not very detailed and by technical definition the images are not truly hi res. So, it doesn't matter with those. The charts look the same on a 7 inch screen as a 12 inch because the more capable screens can't turn a low res image into a hi res image and because there is not too much to see it does not matter if the lower res screen shows less data on the screen. If ISLA chose to process low resolution data and be general reference only, the ISLA chips would look similar on all the screen sizes as well. But even on a tiny screen, the ISLA charts look head and tails superior to any Garmin product. It just gets better when you use bigger screens with better resolution and because it is precision product vs. a general reference product, bigger does work better as situational awareness does improve.
As for the tracks, you can make your own tracks with ISLA. ISLA provides thousands of miles of them, but you can turn them off and make it like a Garmin chart that provides none if you like or run your own tracks and waypoints along with what is provided. The insinuation from the comment is the tracks could be a bad because the buyer did not run them and that is supposed to be a Con. So far that has never happened. There has not been any reported problem with tracks causing a crash etc. In fact, many people have commented they find some of the tracks to be better options than what they had been using for some areas. That said, it takes most people a week or two to gain confidence in them. Most pros do not run with the tracks and they just turn them off.
As for Access and Navigation skills ISLA has filled a big demand in the marketplace for this insight and provided what thousands of boaters have wished would be delivered for many years as it solved all of the glaring and frustrating shortcomings on GPS charts that have existed since the beginning. Some such as you do not like the improved navigation insights for selfish reasons but others find it to be very helpful and there are far more of them. It also has an environmental bent as it keeps people from running where they shouldn't keeping the bottom safe from damage and keeping boats safe as well. For instance ISLA provides a layer for the exact boundaries of poll and troll zones. You won't likely find that on your gps chart. And the tracks provided show boaters unfamiliar with an area how to avoid problems that are hard to see. Boaters that are bent on exploring now can do so with far greater important information and insight. How does that happen? It’s all done by hand. To date, over 60,000 small bars and banks have been drawn and many thousands of danagerous obstacles marked with to the foot accuracy. And that is in addition to the precision tracks. Turn the layer on and it’s pretty easy to see where the problems are even at midnight or completely fog. It’s totally different from your chart. Actual users agree that is a better option for the public than providing a general reference application that provides great uncertainty in challenging areas and puts boaters and the environment at greater risk. Navigation skills can be acquired far faster with a highly accurate tool and great images vs. a general reference tool and fuzzy photos. And you can find fishing spots a lot better as well.
ISLA is not a PC operation and you may not like direct commentary you may have read by some devout users or by us about how things really are out there and how charts really compare. But that is the way we roll around here. Because questions are raised every week on the phone and on line about differences in charts and units, factual comparisons are provided and we don't leave out 1/2 of the truth like you may hear from others. We do aim to tell it and show it just like it is much to the chagrin of a few who are incentivized in other product directions and to others who just have very limited perspective on the differences and only know what they know which in some cases is only what they have read. We make no apologies for creating ISLA or for telling the truth about how it compares when questions are asked, factually incorrect statements may made or specious commentary may be posted. ISLA has social media ads and posts and also runs some TV campaigns which are generally not controversial straight forward and generic. ISLA blog posts such as this one responding to questions or comments made by bloggers are not meant to be marketing endeavors. But they are often perceived that way by some such as you so I can appreciate your marketing comment motivation. We recognize the truth is often a challenge for some who are invested in other directions and/or may have PC leanings. As for myself, I have had well enough of the PC culture and the PC blogs. I got years of PC responses, complete obliques and flat out lies and BS from other chart providers when I called them to inquire about many issues I found with their charts. It's still the same and lots of others are continuing to experience that when they also call. You will never get all of the truth from those guys and you will likely never get much more than what you have now from them in terms of quality or accuracy. So pick your poison. You can stick with that support paradigm and convince yourself to feel great about the general reference features, blurry images, and BS marketing ads that state otherwise. Or you can choose the opposite. ISLA will always operate differently from most of the others who likely will never be completely honest with their customers.
The general reference charts work fine for you as you say and for some others too mostly because you put your own data on top of it so you have something to follow for reference. Without any of that user added data the chart by itself is full of uncertainty. You are running mostly on your own data you added to the chart as opposed to the chart itself. All of the Garmin people have to do that to get around challenging areas and that says everything you need to know about it right there. That has been the way it has always been. So when folks they say they like their chart like you did most of them really like their own data they put on it and not the chart itself which is just a canvas to hold their data. ISLA is not a perfect chart and never will be but it is light years ahead of what you are used to seeing and is the culmination of many thousands of hours of focused detailed on the water study and years of research. Maps matter and they are far more important than the unit running it. The best unit on the planet is worthless to as a chart plotter if it runs an poorly documented and inaccurate map that is not embellished with user provided points to follow.
Finally, and perhaps the most important. You CAN buy Local Knowledge and you Can navigate perfectly and safely in a totally unfamiliar area the first time and do so even at night (although I don't recommend that). That is exactly what ISLA provides --- Tons of very detailed local knowledge right down to the local PVC stakes in so many places. It is so detailed compared to what you run even a 10 year old kid who has never been to some of the most challenging places such as the Everglades could navigate successfully and efficiently via clearly documented tracks that took locals a very long time to understand. And that has actually been done as reported by an amazed father who watched it happen and wrote us. Like I said before. You only know what you know and you really can’t appreciate how remarkably different the ISLA product is with no first-hand experience.