New Toys, Need Advice.......Colour Graph GPS Combo???

[Hoover]

im lookin for a colour graph with gps im not sure what brand i hear lawrence is good, im willing to spend a bit of money up to the 2000.00 mark, but no more. can someone help me out with what is good?

thanx
hoover

ps...... thats alot of drinkin money for school gone so its gotta be good!

[Seaweed]

I fished a tournie this past weekend with a guy who had a Lowrance 330 in his ride. Amazing detail and split screen capabilities. Color was wild. I have seen a few of these this year and the color ones are real nice but I think that the mono screens with the grayscale are equally amazing and although I don`t know what the price difference is the color would be a nice to have feature. I would take a grayscale though too in a heartbeat if the color was too pricy.

I have seen many new players in the Fish-Finder - GPS sales arena this year so you might want to get a bunch of good input prior to jumping on anything. I am sure with Lowrance that you are dealing with one of the oldest companies in the business and that has to mean something.

I have been shopping for a GPS for my handheld PC and was looking at Navman products and I see that they now have a bunch of product for boats that I didn`t see when I was shopping last year. Good thing I have not bought anything yet.

[eye-tracker]

Hoover go with a HUGE screen. The split screens suck. You cant see enough iformation when trolling. Great if you run to a spot with the GPS and then shut off the motor and then switch to the sonar...but for trolling you want to see as much info as possible on both the GPS and Sonar.I went with two 320 x 320 units...One sonar and one for the GPS both in grey scale...I am waiting for the colour units to drop.

good luck...

[nighttroller]

I have been looking at Lawrence and Garmin. The biggest difference seems to be that Lowrance you can put memory chips in with Navigational information that you can purchase from Navionics and some other companies. I have heard the Navionics Maps are great. The Garmin has built in memory and you can download Maps from your computer and upload your waypoints onto the computer. Makes it easier to share with people who have a Garmin. I would suggest you explore those differences a bit more and decide which is best for you. You should also make sure that it is WAAS enabled (most high end units are) because that gives it accuracy to 3 meters (or there abouts).

[furious]

Definitely go with the Lowrance, I have a Garmin Map unit and it sucks. The unit works great and all, but they don't support Navionics, . If you are fishing the Great Lakes you will like having the charts right there, and now with the new cards, you can buy one card and it covers a huge area. Eye-Tracker is right about the huge screen too, buy the biggest screen you can. I don't like the combo units myself. It's like anything else, they can break, I can go fishing without a GPS, but I don't like going without a graph, too much stuf out there to hit!!! If the unit craps out, then you are out 2 units. I bought a new 320 last year, it lasted one week before it went wonky on me in the middle of a 2 day tournament. I shipped it on Mon. morning, called and told Lowrance it was coming, and had a brand new unit in my hands on Wednesday. That is pretty good service. A buddy of mine bought a new combo unit and one of the gimbal knobs would not work, he had 2 new one in 2 days.

Long story short, stick with Lowrance. I've used Hummingbird, Garmin, Lowrance and Eagle. The Lowrance and Eagle are the best in my opinion.

[Xenos]

I have an X15mt with the Navionics charts, when you can troll the edges of the schools and walls with the GPS maps and you know your down rigger balls are running safe you know you have a good unit. Last week I was working the scotch bonnet school 15 miles off shore and I knew precisely where to troll I was able to stay right on the wall. Buy a Lowrance unit.

[roughrider]

Stay away from the dual frenquency transducers,lots of problems.I read a tread with almost 100 posts on the problem in the gangler great lakes forum. roughrider