best marine gps/chartplotter/sonar for the money

[cajun bill]

UPDATE: Purchased the Elite 7 HDI today from West Marine. According to the sales rep (and the package), it comes with Navionics Gold, but I had to purchase the ducer separately for about $200. Got home and started reading the instructions, etc. and didn't see anything about tide info so I called Lowrance and was told by the rep that he had just tried out this exact package yesterday and noticed that the "Gold" did not have tide info. He put me on hold and spoke with some SME (subject matter expert) and learned that the "gold" chip is not really the gold chip, it is an "Elite bundle" chip. After he said this, I checked my chip and sure enough, it is labeled "Elite bundle". I asked him what else the chip doesn't have that the gold chip is supposed to have and he said he didn't know so I asked for an escalation and he promised me that a "supervisor" would call me back, but I'm still waiting. I took another look at the packaging and it has a sticker on the box that states "Navionics Gold chart microSD card included" so it is appears that this is deceptive advertising. I called the salesperson at WM and she advised that this is the first she knew of this, but would take the unit back if I wanted to do so. Will update this when I know more.

[cajun bill]

Just learned that Lowrance is coming out with a software update that will allow the HDI units to extract the tide and current info from the Gold charts. Apparently, I was not the only one complaining about this. So far, my experience with Lowrance Cust. Svc./Tech Support has been positive. Hope it continues.