Navman Trackfish vs Lowrance or Hummingbird Matrix

[deb]

Looking to make the quatum upgrade leap soon!
Interested in comments good and bad on the combined GPS/Sounder systems.
The units need to have NMEA link so they talk to the vhf (navman 7200dsc)
I have read with great interest, stacks of articles on the benefits of separation, however the helm and wiring loom in it, really do not allow for separate units.
Leaning toward Navman 6500 or its current model 6600 simply due to seeing a screen on a boat in daylight and found it quite easy to read from all angles,
or
also leaning to the Hummingbird Matrix system 47 with its active antennae for gps
or
am open minded on the lowrance. Currently have a lowrance x49 which is adequate, was the bees knees in its day, however the viewing angle on the screen and fiddly menu's which have to be reset every time you turn it off, quite annoying.
Does anyone have any of these?
If so,
Do all the nmea connections work well?
How do you find the viewing angles?
How do you find them in bright daylight glare situations?
Do you think the menu's are easy?
All comments good and bad are greatfully accepted, if anyone has great deals going on them at the moment or in a months time, let me know ;)

[deb]

anyone??
or are these duds?? :-?

[edaw]

i currently use a lowranc 337c df and its idiot proof the color screen is great day or night and can be viewed from any angle easy the nmea works great i have it hooked up to my uniden vhf. the sounder and gps both proform really well for what it cost me i got the unit from the states for $980 delivered to my door. and the beauty about lowrance is you can change all of the measurments to what ever tickls your fancy (feet meters miles killermeters

[Coontakinta]

dreamdays, I have a navman tracker 5600 and fish 4600, fitted with the fuel transducer.I gotta say that I would never buy another navman product.

My problems aside, I understand that many users have continual problems with the products (most noticably, the echo sounders) and my experiences with them and their lack of customer support / service has me rueing the day I agreed to buy one! >:(

I should have listened to my head instead of the dealer and went with what I've had in the past and that would have been a lowrance.

Have a read of this link.

http://www.fishsa.com/cgi-bin/forum/forum.pl?num=1133946267

Its a post intiated by myself on another forum, but one of the contributors to it discusses the problems he's had along with mine.

A m8 of mine who also runs a navman was talking to an dealer about them earlier this week and was told that they stopped selling them because of the fact that they were having to send too many back under warranty! Now this was in a small coastal town so needless to say it didnt take long for word to get around that they perhaps werent upto the job!

[deb]

Thanks guys
gee ,that is interesting on the navman :o, who knows with the dealer maybe didn't their reach buy levels for rebates to keep it worthwhile selling them.

Edaw, did you use ebay? I have been looking at the ones put up there and am wondering about how your warranty would go say in 6 months time , as the products listed, if you look them up in Bias, Glasscraft or Whitworths catalogue seem to be a season behind?