Simrad GO9 xse vs Garmin echomap 95sv

[clarky180]

Looking at purchasing one of these units and was chasing some feedback from people who use them. I like the idea of touch screen but have never used one in practice. With the Garmin I can upgrade to a gt51 transducer for around the same price as the Simrad. Any feeedback would be appreciated. Cheers.

[hungry6]

If its a centre console, get the Simrad. Much clearer and readable screen in full sunlight. Apart from that they are virtually identical in performance. I got both of these unit on my little boat.

[chocolatemoose]

both companies are punching in the heavy weight class now days with the amount of pesos they through into the R&D departments...... yet both have taken a different approach to similar problems

.case 1, VALUE.....this was tackled in prob the most oposite ways fro meach company.. Navico/simrad went with the scattergun as many things as possible approach... touch screen,"multitouch even" wifi. nmea, radar support. every kind of sonar "mostly". etc.... but you cant get something from nothing... so when you have lots of things for the same price point. something has to give.

garmin went with the less is more aproach and made the features it did have VERY good.. kind of like...... 50 dollars buys you a nice steak or A LOT!! of hotdogs so the garmin's Chirped spectrumed sonar "in all 3 bands... traditional down and side" does produce a very very good sonar image.. and still alows for panoptix etc... BUT no touch , no wifi etc

CASE2. usability..........if something is hard to use... no point using it even if its touched by the pope good!. and both companies took leafs from the consumer electronic market..... phones and tablets mostly.. who themselves have poured way more research coin into making things EASY TO USE..... in simrads case its pretty obvious... icons "like apps" appear on a home screen and everything moves around rather pretty.....Garmin went with "what they have had work for them for a while" and have simple big clear bold arial font text panels to select from "garmin has a long history with in car GPS units which have to be easy to use"

so both are easy to use . just in different ways

case 3. Build quality. Simrad is a professional devision of navico.. and does like to step things up in the build quality department over lowrance . hense no front openings on the simrad. all sealed glass... only a waterproof rubber cap on the back for the map and then plug ports.
garmin is all tactitle buttons so there IS opening but its a single sealed rubber panel... what does give the garmin some cred if you are cradle mounting is the quick release bracket... on a 9" unit. this is amazing.. comes out easy.. goes in easy... no plugs to disconnect.. HOWEVER this does suck a bit when wanting to dash mount the unit


so after all that.........what do you buy?


.................................first thing id be suggesting is having a play with them seing which one you feel more comfortable with

then.. seeing if it ticks your needs and wants "future wants?"

and then if its in budget... go for it

Moose

[clarky180]

Thanks moose looks like I need to find some and have a play.

[Cape Crusader]

G'day
Great info above. I have no experience with the models you ask about but thought I'd throw in a couple of thoughts and experiences.
I previously installed a Lowrance touch 9. I thought it was great, though needed some fiddling to get the best out of it. Had issues not being able to fish, endless research and changes to settings didn't help. Then called lowrance, the aussie tech explained ping speed to me. Aha, all good, can now see the fish, but thought it seemed something that could have easily been automated. Any support was great and in aus and the product was great. Sold that boat
Buy another boat. was going to go with lowrance again, but wanted 2 screens, dealing with 1 split screen all the time I found annoying. I thought 2 combos so I have redundency and use one as sonar and one as plotter. For value I ended up getting 2 garmin 1020xs (10.4") for a lot less than one touch 12.
The garmin worked picking up fish no probs, I haven't done any sonar adjustments I can think of in the almost 2 years.
However, there were some short comings and questions. Well the overseas call centre was useless, wrong info no nothings.
Then I call again with some suggestions for improvent and find the support centre is now in australia. My questions answered, my suggestions not only listened to but acted on and made even better than I ever thought of in the case of boundaries.
I occassionally try and do something by touching the screens but with all the soft keys it's good. I'm not sure that I would like a non touch without the soft keys but it's been a while now.
I found the menus a little more intuitive on the lowrance but very happy overall. But in my case the it came down to the value at the time taking advantage of a nice discount.
Both brands a great imo, especially with local support
Cheers
Rod

[chocolatemoose]

Those 1020xs units were quite good value.... solid units.. they have been reborn in the new 1022XS AND 12" 1222xs variants.. so watch this space on them

[Spaniard_King]

Also good value will be the new 752xs and 952xs with a new 600w Medium chirp GT15TM being released early Feb as well

[davo]

I just bought a 95SV Chirp and a 75SV chirp Garmin for both boats. Very happy indeed. I was fishing a saw these round shapes and looking closer they were turtles. I could actually see the flippers and head.