What is the difference between these wto products besides the card reader? Both seem to do about the same thing but there is a major price difference I found the Explorer for $9.99 and Navplanner for 89.99. Im planning to buy one or the other so I can do map study on the computer instead of sitting in the boat scanning around with the gps. I would like to hear from people who have tried one or the other.

Navplanner displays lake maps from your Navionics card (if you have one) where Hotmaps Explorer displays maps you have that install with the Explorer software. Many of the maps on the Navionics chip are High Def (1' intervals) with explorer you get to download 1 free High Def map and can purchase others for I think $20 each.

Before I had a decent GPS/Depth Finder I would use Explorer once I got the GPS & Navionics card I wanted Navplanner so I wouldn't have to pay again for high def lakes and to be sure the map I was looking at on the PC and marking spots was what I would have on the boat.

FYI

Navionics informed me several weeks ago that many of the High Definition maps for Hot Maps Explorer were no longer available. The list is now very limited.

I would go with the NavPlanner.

Gman

so do I have to use the navionics chip to use navplanner??

As far as I know, yes. No real lake maps display until I put my chip in the card reader and open the file. It does display a world map with no lake details and any waypoints you may have loaded. The world map just shows yellow for land and white for oceans/gulf and names of major cities. Doesn't even show state boundary lines.

hummmmmmm