Just needed to see if it's me or is most of you asking why did Lowrance go to the micro SD Cards not sure if all newer units has them but my 9 & 12 Elite TI both has the Micro SD cards my HDS touch 12 on my last boat had the regular SD card so when I got the new boat my SD Map cards are no good for the Elite TI units. I'm sure I can down load from one to the other or just buy new Micro map Cards. Getting the little Micro Card out of the slot is not easy with big fingers I guess that's why we carry needle nose. Just wanted to ask why and vent a little it's really no big deal as the saying goes IT'S Just a THANG!

I hate those little cards. I have an older unit and just removing the regular size card is difficult, but when it lets go, both go flying!

My HDS12 Gen 3 has micro sd.

Manufacturers have gone to micro sd for several reasons.

1. Real estate on a motherboard in newer units has gotten scarce because of all the new features.
2. Sd card manufacturing has changed a lot. They can get more and more data on a smaller more expensive card.
3. Electronics manufacturers can obsolete older units forcing you to buy new units.

Most cards that you have bought from navionics or lake master are copy protected. You just cannot copy from an SD to Micro SD. Forcing you to buy a new card in the correct size and format. I know that navionics would send you the older map on a new micro sd if you have registered the older card with them. Don't know about lake master... If you have an older unit with a card/size limitation and you just like to back up waypoints for different lakes, buy extra card now if you can still find them. $GB and 8GB card are getting scarce and prices are going up. Get em while you can!!! Can't find em at local retailers now, sometimes Frys will have them. Mostly on Ebay or Amazon...

Great Info. D Egge. So that's explains why my down load from SD card to Micro SD card did not take I was wondering why the Premium map did not come up when I plug in the Micro SD card, Oh well guess i'll shell out another $200 on new Micro Card, I wonder if Tom Redding Lake Fork boat lanes SD card is protected? I did the same down load trying to swap the LF Boat Lane SD card to Micro Card but have not been to Fork so don't know if it transferred.

I doubt the boat lanes card is copy protected.
Very difficult and expensive to copy protect SD/microSD cards on a large scale.

My understanding
The boat lanes chips are GPS trails/paths that can be uploaded to your fish finder hard drive
You could take a blank SD/micro SD card and insert it into the unit and download the boat lane trails/paths from your unit to the blank SD/micro SD card. Then you could insert the SD card into your computer and upload the files to your computer for an additional back up. Using GPS babel or other GPS software, you could convert those GPS trails to other formats for other units you own (Humminbird/Garmin/etc)

Call Navionics, they have a special for $49 for cards that are expired; or old. If you call them, they'll help you.
Tim