Buying a Chartplotter/Fishfinder Combo

K

KeyWestBoater

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Feb 22, 2008
Messages
235
I'm looking for a good chartplotter/fishfinder combo for less than $500. I've been looking at Humminbird and Garmin. I'd like to avoid having to buy the chip which enhances the charts (about $200 extra!) and use the maps that come pre-loaded. Any suggestions? Also, does anyone know the difference between a single beam and dual beam transducer? Is there an advantage to a dual beam? :confused:

Many thanks!
 
J

Joebklyn

Cadet
Joined
Sep 4, 2007
Messages
23
Re: Buying a Chartplotter/Fishfinder Combo

I was trying to see if anybody posted the chip chart on the net ( save $200). I'm looking at the Garmin 400's and the 500 series.
 
W

whofan

Petty Officer 1st Class
Joined
Feb 17, 2003
Messages
296
Re: Buying a Chartplotter/Fishfinder Combo

I believe strongly in separate units. I`d look at Garmin for GPS and Humminbird, Vexilar or Furuno for a sonar unit.
I bought a Lowrance 5200c GPS with a X510c sonar. Had a shallow water freeze up issue with the Sonar. Sent the sonar in for repair twice, since then I pulled the plug on it and bought a vexilar Edge that works great. The 5200 Globalmap works good but Lowrances way of dealling with their software issues is not to my liking I wanted a fix not a trial and error approch to stumbling on to a solution.

Lowrance Knows they have a software problem they should tell the customer they will contact him to send his unit in when they find a fix, not keep having him sending it in over and over.
I`m glad my GPS was not hooked up in this mess too.
Buy separate units thats the one thing I did right. I should have stayed with my Lowrance X75 or went with a different brand for the upgrade.
Lowrance has great hardware, they will have a great product if they get their act together with their customer service and software issues. Till then I say stay away from Lowrance and buy separate units.

Shop Iboats, they have great customer service. Iboats deserves my business they have been good to me.
 
dingbat

dingbat

Supreme Mariner
Joined
Nov 20, 2001
Messages
16,320
Re: Buying a Chartplotter/Fishfinder Combo

Joebklyn said:
I was trying to see if anybody posted the chip chart on the net ( save $200). I'm looking at the Garmin 400's and the 500 series.
Click to expand...

Not sure what you mean about chip charts? If you get the pre-loaded charts you get the whole continental US plus some on the unit
 
TBarCYa

TBarCYa

Senior Chief Petty Officer
Joined
Apr 13, 2005
Messages
781
Re: Buying a Chartplotter/Fishfinder Combo

dingbat said:
Not sure what you mean about chip charts? If you get the pre-loaded charts you get the whole continental US plus some on the unit
Click to expand...

Garmin for example has their BlueNavG2 charts that come on a SD card that enhance the built-in maps and give the ability for the unit to create a route based on chart data rather than just straight lines and manually added turns. I've never seen the BlueNav G2 charts but I know that everywhere I boat is covered quite well with the built-in charts.
 
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