Help! I'm so confused... Fish finder buying is hard

[RoughriverRick]

I need some advise from you experienced guys. I recently bought a bass boat and want to replace the Lowrance HDs5's on it. I want a 9 at the console and a 7 at the bow. I am down to either the Garmin 93vs/73vs or the Lowarnce Elite ti2 9/7 units. They both seem to be very similar. Garmins would be $300 cheaper which is a lot of money to me. Anybody have experience with these units? I bass and crappy fish a lot. Fished 15 of so tournaments last year in the back of my buddies boat. He has HDS's and they worked good gut I didn't mess with them much. I'm gonna pull the trigger soon, just need help aiming..

[Rude196]

I have used lowrance for years and love their 2d sonar. I run gen 3's with 3D and very happy with them. I don't know if academy still has the carbon 7 on sale but at $699 it was a steal.

[jdwo2212]

There is a bunch of hds 9's for sale in the used section. Lots of good deals in there now. Also, if you stick with lowrance, depending on how old your unit is, you will be able to use the 2d ducer and power cable. So that would save you some labor on install and also give you a spare. I use gen3 hds and love it. But its your money and your choice.

[Bill Reynolds]

I run HDS9 Gen2 console and bow but I have installed an Elite ti setup on my Buddies boat and really like it. He runs the totalscan transducer on the transom and the HDI up front. The Ti2 series with wireless networking makes it even better.
I have always run Lowrance but have fished Co with Guys that have Birds. My observation is the downscan resolution of HB is better than Lowrance, but I was comparing new HB to my 6 year old Lowrance units.
Another positive for HB is the size of the transducer. They combine SS/DS/Sonar into one small Xducer while the Lowrance is Huge.
Consider the maps. I run Navonics map cards Because the built in Lowrance Maps do not have contours for my home lake. Something to check.

[red devil]

I've always had Lowrance on my boat. I just got a Garmin 93 Plus vs to put on the bow. The transducer in much much smaller and it's all in one. With the gen 2 lowrance stuff you have to have two transducers on the trolling motor if your looking for down and side image on the trolling motor. With the Gen 3 or the new elites you only need one.

I haven't had the Garmin on the water yet but it's much smaller in size with a bigger screen than my HDS8 was. Plus the Garmin is capable of livescope which the neatest sonar technology going right now.

[lisa1117]

One thought with Lowrance, If you stay with HDS units you could utilize the back bone in the boat and keep a HDS 5s for say mapping and utilize the new graphs full scren for graphing/ side image. With Lowrance you can link and have waypoint sharing from Legacy through Carbon for sure and possibly Live. Lowrance gives the most options. If you like Lowrance? Call RMP ask what take off units they have, good people and will steer you in the right direction.

[coolwhip]

I have the Lowrance 9's up front and at console. I'd suggest a 9 up front if thats something you can do.

[RoughriverRick]

Thanks for the help guys. I just bought 2 93vs units with transducer and Lakevu hd mapping. Going with the 9" units I saved more money. GPS store had them marked down pretty well.

[RangerRic]

You will love the echomaps. Does Santa know that you need a 'livescope' now?

[fishin couillon]

With the 2 93's you can share waypoints thru ethernet but you need the cable. Great choice....

[ifishinxs]

Garmin is all you need to know..

[pitbully71]

I went through the same thing the last few weeks. I ended up buying a Garmin Echomap 93sv Plus. With the price savings on features and maps, plus the option of adding Panoptix Livescope later, that sold me on Garmin.

[iabass8]

Buy the largest you can afford. I suggest going /w at least 9in at both front and console, especially if you are going to be using them to fish off the bank. A lot of us wasted time and money buying and selling smaller units before finally giving in. Save or look for a deal on the 9in graphs. I prefer Lowrance. Never used Garmin. Been around the new birds. Nice graphs. They're all good graphs in a vacuum. I would base my decision, if prices were all equal, on which graph supports the best map card that works the best in your area.

[RoughriverRick]

You will love the echomaps. Does Santa know that you need a 'livescope' now?

Santa doesn't know it but the Easter Bunnie does. I'm in tighter with her. LOL

[Bkt1]

Garmin livescope!!!

[Riccochet]

Just so you know the Garmin EchoMap don't have true networking. They can share waypoints, that's it, and it's via the NMEA 0183 port. The ethernet port on the units is used for Panoptix/Livescope only. Only the GPSmap units have true networking.

[RangerRic]

Santa doesn't know it but the Easter Bunnie does. I'm in tighter with her. LOL

[champ223]

I just got a 93 sv also to add for future live scope. It was a great deal at $600

[Whopperstopper]

I think you will enjoy your new Garmin's. I also purchased 2 echo map 93 from Garmin at GPS on Black Friday. While I am not an expert in electronics I think Garmin offers some good features. Easy to use, built in maps, and pricing was a huge + for me. These 3 things were important, brand not so much.

I've been reading the Garmin Forums and there is a lot of good advice over there.

Congrats and Merry Christmas

[Riccochet]

Mapping is another concern. Since they don't accept Navionics cards you'd want to make sure the built in Garmin mapping covers the bodies of water you plan to fish.

Now, next year they are expected to release their new mapping with Navionics data included. But I believe they'll be charging for that update. Something to consider.