Recommend a sonar unit

[fairchaser]

Thanks for the help guys. I'm gonna check these all out on YouTube and then watch for a deal. I've been flying blind and there has been so much improvement in technology that I can't wait to see how much difference it makes in my fishing success.

 

[bluball]

Apart from screen size or ease of use does one brand have any features that are clearly better. I've seen some with chirp technology, 3D vs 2D, side scan vs down scan, internal maps, graphing, etc.

dont buy one without chirp, the difference is night and day. it rejects a lot or the unnecessary noise from the sonar return. as cheap as some of the chirpunits are on clearance right now it just doesnt make sense to buy a non chirp unit, unless you are just going to use it for depth/nav/mapping.

all of the brands have their strengths and weaknesses. hummingbird has better side imaging, lowrance has better down imaging(may not anymore with hummingbird mega and some of garmins xducers, and garmin is light years ahead in 2d and panoptix type technology. thats not to say garmin or lowrance's side imaging is not good, it is, they are just a little grainier. their transducers are designed to show more on fish returns than detail, where as hummingbirds narrow beam xducer shows higher degrees of detail, but will show fish if the settings are adjusted. garmin and hummingbird's side imaging will reach out past 100 ft usable on each side, where as lowrance is about 80ft before it goes dark. (may not matter much as most folks scan at 60 ft max on 7" and 9" displays).

Gps lowrance is better than bird in my opinion,thats one of the reasons i have lowrance and humminbird on my boat.I can fish a crappie bed and never throw a marker bouy.Bet garmins gps is good also,they have been in the gps business for years.

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+1, forgot to add that in my post. gps tracking is really good in lowrance and garmin. also, the really good images that you see in advertisements for humminbirds side imaging is not the xducer that comes with the 9" or 7" units, but you can get an upgrade for $85bucks. i have some screen shots comparing the compact si and hdsi xducers but the forum says the pic files are too large.

i would place the ease of use for newbs on the garmin echomap and lowrance hook2, elite ti units.

Ive never used the cheaper lowrance units,only been around the hds series.I assuse yhere gps is as good,but not 100% sure.

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[WTM]

Thanks for the help guys. I'm gonna check these all out on YouTube and then watch for a deal. I've been flying blind and there has been so much improvement in technology that I can't wait to see how much difference it makes in my fishing success.

it will definately help in reducing time fishing unproductive areas. the companies usually come out with their new tech at the end of the year and first quarter of the next. they will usually mark the last gen units down a couple of hundred bucks. black friday and christmas are also good times to catch sales.

 

[WTM]

blueball,
only minor differences in the elite ti series and hds, ie, glass display vs plastic display, ports, etc. the hook2 series use lesser components and gps antennae. if im not mistaken i believe lowrance came out with a y cable for the elite ti to split off a seperate 2d skimmer xducer. garmin doesnt offer that option on the echomap series, sadly, as the big problem with the all in one transducers they extremely finicky to use them as an on plane skimmer xducer and a trolling scanning xducer. all in ones are long, fat and expensive. lol.