The free version available to download is quite limited in what you can do with it, and yes you do need a chip reader to transfer the data.
The chip readers are available from places like PC world and online for about £15.
I believe the free version is there just as a taster of what you can do if you are prepared to spend the £500
I thought you needed a special Navionics style card reader? I looked at this a while ago and my normal card reader didn't work with the Navionics charts (I can read them OK but the software didn't recognise the chart).
If this has changed then great - hopefully it has! I was just looking for something simple to be able to look at the charts and possibly print sections of them.