Electronics
 

I am sure this has been discussed in the past , but I am trying to buy a unit for my Christmas present. I had an old hand held GPS and it went out. I am looking for a GPS/ Sonar Combo in the $600 range. A good friend of mine has the Lowrance HDS 5 Combo. I mainly fish Big Lake with occassional Toledo Trips. Any help greatly appreciated. The more user friendly the better!

I like hummingbird better, just my opinion

Why is that?? Give a little discussion.

Which one?

Like my Lowrance. Frined has Humminbird and he likes it.

Academy runs the HDS5 combo for $200 off at times and I THINK they are running the sale now.

I fish Big Lake and Toledo.

Thanks Chief. Cabelas has them $100 off right now. I will check Academy tomorrow. Do you have the HDS5? I read some reviews that they had some problems with the waterproofing and Lowrance was a pain to deal with. I am sure you can find bad stuff about all of them if you dig though.

I like the grapics better ( from what I have seen) on hummingbird, I have the model before the HDS8 on a boat I bought used but I would have bought the Hummingbird with side and down imaging......this has to be add to Lowrance which I guess is nice if you want to add later.

I have a HDS7 with structure scan on my console and a HDS5 on the front deck.

I have had a couple of problems with the 7 and actually have had no problems when dealing with Lowrance. 2 week turn around on both issues.

Boat Fix has some good GPS for good prices.
I like Garmin best.
I have a Hummingbird that came with my boat.
Not as user friendly as Garmin.
Commercial fishermen and oilfield boats use Furuno and Garmin most.
Raymarine is pretty popular also, but is the hardest to use. Brother in law
as Raymarine and I find it is not user friendly at all.

I like the user friendliness of Garmin, easy to use, I use the tide charts off the garmin a lot especially when there isn't a computer with internet around., I like the maps, the sonar can use a little work, I like the lowrance sonar more. but if your just wanting a gps to navigate nothing wrong with Garmin and the maps are a better price too. if you buy the lowrance look at spending $200 for maps.

Check with Shouthshore Marine on the site about prices and what he recommends. He installs and sells them.

Do a Google search for gps maps and see what is out there.