|
Posts: 437
| To the question about whether the Garmin built in mapping vs a map card like LakeMaster or Navionics, personally I would buy a chip before whats built in. I dont have experience with the Garmin specifically, but a chip is going to be the way to go IMO as the various companies update the lakes, etc. I have never found the built in mapping to be very good. For coastal waters maybe, but no inland lakes.
I know if you buy Navionics you can get free updates for one year. You download the new stuff and put it on a chip. Pretty sweet. You never know how long some of these chips sit on the shelf.
I have Navionics Platinum, Lowrance Insight Pro and LakeMaster Minnesota chips that I use in my Lowrance HDS units.
The Lowrance Insight chips are essentially the same thing as Lakemaster BUT you get LOW and Rainy on one chip whereas with Lakemaster you have to buy separate ones. So that is a ncie benefit.
You will find that one chip excels over another on different waters. Some the Navionics is better, some the Lakemaster/Lowrance content is better.
Regarding the GPS units themselves they are all pretty dang sweet now. They can do far more things that many of us even though possible even just a few years ago.
The things that intrigue me the most now are the ability to record my sonar, then upload this log file to Lowrance Insight website, who will format it and then you get a mapfile to use in a chip. BOOM, your own custom map for a lake/area that may not have been the most accurate before.
The ability to overlay map detail WITH down/side imaging. This is crazy functionality that really helps learn the body of water. Not something I have used, but I have watched videos on it and it is incredible.
The ability to highlight depth ranges or even hazards is available from pretty much all of the brands these days so that isnt a big benefit of going with one brand over the other.
I use Lowrance, my buddy has Humminbird. Both work great and no issues with either. I find the Lowrance (at least HDS) units to be more for the guy that wants to customize views or settings, while the Humminbird is more for someone who wants to turn it on and go. My experience, not necessary what others may find.
We have tied our boats off to each other in the middle of the lake and were monkeying with various settings and while both were effective at reading depth, the Humminbird was harder to get some fine details that I was able to pinpoint on the HDS. He was also graphing far fewer fish than I was which was odd. We were hovering over schools of crappies in the 20 to 30 foot range with the fish either hugging the bottom or suspended 10 ft down. His Bird (forget the number) had trouble distinguishing a bottom hugging fish from the bottom. On my HDS I changed the color palette and it was quite easy.
Just my experience on a 4 day trip we spent up Nort.
I wouldnt shy away from any of the big names. There are also lots of mid price options so you dont have to rob a bank to buy them anywmore. | |
|
