On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 20:46:50 -0400, HK wrote:

Short Wave Sportfishing wrote:
On Fri, 15 Jun 2007 08:15:18 -0400, HK wrote:

Anyone publishing these?

As in, $1000 chartplotters/fishfinders, six new units tested.

That sort of stuff.

I'm surprised I didn't comment on this. Here's my take.

1 - Anything you buy today will be automatically obselete tomorrow.

2 - Instead of comparision, figure out what features are important
then look at different units to see if any match your criteria. It's
not like there are a ton of manufacturers out there.

3 - Once you find that match, it's just a question of price.

Recently, I've been in the market for a combo unit - radar/gps, etc
and have looked at quite a few. I'm kind of constrained to units that
use the Navionics package in the CF card format - I have a lot of
money invested in Navionics Gold and Platinum CF cards and I don't
want to lose that investment.

There isn't a lot of choice.

It's not easy to find stores that offer a decent selection. We have
three or four chains active in this area, plus a couple of indys.

I think I am going to recommend a lowrance GPS/Plotter and a separate
Lowrance fishfinder. I always like the ergonomics of the Lowrance stuff.
The new Lowrance stuff looks very nice to me.

Um..well, takt this for what it's worth. The recent quality of
Lowrance units leave a lot to be desired from what I've been hearing.
I talked to somebody who I trust about the small boat electronics and
from what he said, Lowrance is a hit or miss proposition - when they
work, they work, when they don't, they don't and reliability is
problematic. There isn't any happy middle ground. Iv'e also heard
their customer service has slipped in recent years and that has come
from several different sources.

Just a thought.