NEW gps/sounder

[guypepper]

Hey all

never had a sounder before only ever used a hand held gps to get me to my spots, but with a new bigger boat comes bigger and better things, looking for an all in 1 combo for around $1,000 just wondering what I should be looking at, 90% of fishing will be 3-7 meters with the odd snapper run to 14 meters. let me know what you think and what I should be looking for

Cheers

[chocolatemoose]

a few options in the list there . heres a little break down as i see it

Lowrance Elite7 chirp: $799 . very easy to use system, CHIRP based sonar can be tweeked to give really nice crisp returns in shallower waters. say 30mt and less. navionics based mapping is pretty good. certanly one of the best mapping choices for the recreational user the Down imaging is.. okay. not as clear as other brands or even the HDS lss2 bigger brother. the operating of the unit is as simple as you can make a system like this and still keep it full of the usual tweeks and toys.
its not the most fun for quick removing with 2 big blue connectors and 2 knobs. its the system i recomend for shallower water price point ease of use customers. spite peoples irates with the Elite series. i give it 6 mooses out of 10

Garmin 75DV :$789. phyiscally a tad wider than the lowrance elite 7. the system has a fair step up in build quality , buttons feel nice. built in light sensor for screen brightness, built in garmin blue chart mapping makes map loading stupidly fast. infact there is no wait or lag time anywhere in the system, it all works as soon as you press a key. the sonar whilst only traditional frequency at 77khz and 200khz is a larger 500w vs 300w from lowrance so it can penetrate a bit deeper and return nice bight rainbow arches. i wouldnt say its as clear as the lowrance. however the downVu is CHIRP based and very clear compared to the DSI on the lowrance. the quick connect bracket works well and keeps everything neat and tidy. a few more mapping options out of the box incl: perspective 3D mapping. and Fishing charts, but the "Allowance" of g2 vision map cards and TOPO inland map cards give it an edge in the nagivation side of things. it scores 7 out of 10 mooses

Raymarine Dragonfly 7: $799 Wins rather easily with screen brightness, a very nice high quality bonded glass screen on the dragonflys. the CHIRP based sonar is also rather nice in shallower waters. as is the downscan. where the raymarine loses a few moose points is in build quality. and operational fiddlyness. its not as fun to get deep into the menu sub systems on the dragonfly compared to the others. entering waypoints can be a real pain. the mounting bracket is....even with the redesign a bit annoying. as is the transducer mounting hardware. it looks very nice on display but gets old and tired with real world use. esp with a joystick and a rotation knob. it scores 4.5/10 mooses

wildcard entries

Humminbird Helix 7 Di gps : a nice improvement on the older 800 series. but still feeling old compared to what else is around. switch fire sonar is pretty good though. priced out by a few hundred dollars.

Simrad Go7 $1099 , also just out of the budget target. this go7 sits between a lowrance elite and simrad NSS7evo2. it runs the same chirp based sonar and down imaging with a HDI transducer as the elite Chirp range. with the benifit of a touch screen. 10htz gps antenna. full nmea2k connectivity and WIFI. its a great tidy small compact sexy little unit over the elite. its just not fat finger friendly 7.5/10 mooses

hope that helps in some way

Moose, RM

[copie]

Mate go the Garmin forget the rest or send just a little more and get a Garmin 75sv.

Mark

[D1vemaster]

Another happy Garmin user here