GPS/Fishfinder units???

[Eric Strand]

A good friend of mine got a new boat and wants to outfit it with a good GPS/Fish/depth unit. Whats a good piece of equipment that wont brake the bank, something pretty user friendly. Thanks for your help.

" Shoot em with their feet down "
Eric Strand

[tomictime]

Garmin and Lowrance make $600 ish units w color screens. Furuno is going to run a bit more as will Raymarine. Perfect Google fare,,,,do some research narrow down and the dogs can help better :smile:

[fishingls]

Try to go with a full VGA screen. Most of the units in the $500 price range are only 1/4 VGA. Full VGA will have four times the pixel count for the same area. Garmin normally offers more bang for the buck than Lowrance. The new Raymarines are awesome units when it comes to performant but unless you get close to $2k they are available with only 1/4 VGA screens. The new 900 series from Humminbird offer exceptional performance but start at about $1,300.

[damoperator]

I put a Lowrance 337c on my new ride, and I like it. More bells and whistles than I can use [so far] and easy to figure out. It's color gps speed and temp would have liked a bigger screen. And all for only 640$ and they through in a chip with more detailed info for the gps. I think it was a lot of bang for the buck. Damoperator
As in all opinions its worth what you pay for it.

[ICHTHYDEMON]

If he has the room,I'd look at getting seperate units. If something goes bad with the unit he won't lose both GPS and the FF.

I've looked at different units for a couple weeks and will be picking up my new boat tommorow. Later this week I'll be buying electronics. Heres what I've found.

In the same $$$$ range,Lowrance has better resolution than Garmin. The Garmin on the other hand is easier to use and seems to work faster than the Lowrance.

The map software for Garmin seems to be more detailed than what is compatible with Lowrance.

Most people I've talked to think that Lowrance makes better FFs and garmin makes a better GPS.

I've decided to go with a Garmin GPS/chartplotter and a Raymarine FF.

[garyk]

I've decided to go with a Garmin GPS/chartplotter and a Raymarine FF.

And what's cool now is the FF's are gps enabled, so you have the GPS/plotter screen, and then the FF will have something like a mapscreen and receive coordinates from the GPS.

I've got Garmin gps/plotter (#261?) talking to a Humminbird Matrix 3D up front. A Raymarine color FF in the stern to watch when I'm trolling.

[DoinMyPart]

Fishermen's right now has closeout deals, I almost bought one last night. Few different models, color or greyscale.

Good luck and learn how to use it to be safe!

[pugetplunker]

0

[sturgn]

You can purchase refurbshed Si-Tex units off there website, I got one last summer Color FF/chartplotter/gps its very nice!

http://www.si-tex.com/html/refurbished_units.html