best marine gps/chartplotter/sonar for the money

[cajun bill]

Looks like my Garvin 178C has cratered, at least the gps portion. The depthfinder portion still works, but I am now officially in the market for a new gps and thinking of spending some major $$ and get a chartplotter/side imaging sonar combo. Been researching for a couple of days and visited West Marine yesterday and was about locked on to the Lowrance with (so called) hybrid down imaging which supposedly gives you the effect of true side imaging. It has a "7 in" screen (actually only about 6.4" of viewing area) and is the Elite 7 HDI Gold (which means it comes preloaded with Navionics mapping software which is supposed to be comparable to Garmin Blue Chart.) WM has a 10% sale ending tomorrow and the unit, pre-sale price, sells for $650 which is a very good price compared to a comparable Garmin 740s at $999, but the Garmin is touch screeen and the Lowrance seems to have a complicated menu, but the Garmin only has a regular depth/fish finder not side imaging. My eyes are also cratering so that's why I want to step up to a larger screen, but can't afford the big screens, the 7-8" version seem just about right. Looking for any advice anyone might have.