lakevu hd mapping is probably the best that comes preloaded and is comparable to lakemaster in my opinion. they disabled the dynamic lake level and now have to have the ultra hd card if you need dynamic lake level adjustments. the lakevu hd maps impressed me and was one of the reasons for going with them. on KY lake, in some of the real shallow flats, they are really accurate, and you dont have to pay for them. they disabled using Navionics 3 years ago but they now own them and are updating Navionics using their data and adding some data from Navionics to lakevu hd. Navionics are atrocious where i fish and this time of year could get you killed. lowrances insight isnt much better on Ky lake.
if they dont have a map for a small lake, you can make your own. pop in an sd card and go to it. they have a community where you can upload and download custom maps from the community.
you can mark anything on the screen and create a waypoint. touch where you want hit "select" and name the waypoint. if you hit "mark" it will mark your boats current position and not the brushpile. i know, kind of confusing and stupid.
keyed touch assist, another confusing and stupid description. it is both. you can either use touchscreen or the buttons and you can do a 2 finger pinch to enlarge the screen or range, side vu, mapping, etc.
THAT SAID, side imaging wasnt the main reason i bought these units at the time. good mapping, 2d chirp, a multitude of xducer options(sold seperately) and panoptix option was the reasons. the xducers that garmin packaged for these units are designed to reflect fish returns and structure returns. SOMETIMES, i have found that cover like small stakebeds and small brushpiles are hard to make out where as they would show up better on a lowrance or humminbird unit. to me it didnt matter because i have my contrast and brightness adjusted to pick out suspended crappie returns anyway. if you want a little better side imaging and a lot better down imaging look at the lowrance elite 9 ti, its pretty much the competition unit in that price range.
