Solix 12 SI first impressions
It's unbelievably heavy. Drop this two thing feet above your head, and you'll be knocked out! You are going to need really strong mounts to stand up to wave pounding. I'm mounting on thin aluminum, I may need to build bracing. Put two Garmin 93sv's side by side the tall way, and that's about how big the case is.
Of course, I have one, super-bright green, stuck-on pixel, in the upper left quadrant. It jumped right out during startup (which takes quite a long time) Viewing sonar, it completely disappears. Hey, it's one in a Million, 24 thousand!
I haven't had it in direct sunlight, but in my very well lit garage, I had to turn brightness down to 4. At arms-length distance, the pixels are just visible. On a rocking boat, you couldn't use more resolution. Setup screens are well laid out, but fairly complex (in the 'fisherman/simple' mode). I spent an hour in demo mode, playing with all the settings. I'll need to spend at least another couple playing with the unit to be comfortable enough to be able to jump to the menu option I want, when I want, out on the lake. That's after reading through the quick start AND the full owner's guides, twice. They barely scratch the surface.
In use, the screen layout, and the layout of useful links at the top of the screen, are real nice. I love that the rotary knob directly controls sensitivity. Didn't have that on my lower end sonars. The buttons and knobs are real high quality, although the joystick seems flimsy. Time will tell.
The touchscreen... It's response is confusing. In some areas, at some times, it seems to need a couple taps to switch a setting. Sometimes, you have to press and hold. It doesn't seem consistent. This was especially annoying when I tried to remove 'favorite' screens from the 'all screens' list. Having said that, I LOVE two-finger zoom! You can zoom into any part of a sonar screen this way, so you can examine a walleye on the bottom, etc. I could see fingerprints when in the dark settings screens, but that was with them ideally lit from the side by my florescent fixtures. I don't think they will be a problem under a sky.
In preparing for the arrival of my first HB, I made a list of things to do:
1. Backup all settings on arrival. (I want to verify that the setup I did in the demo mode is retained thru power off/on, too).
2. Install updates (My Humminbird didn't show any available).
3. Update transducer (I haven't hooked it up, yet).
It took me awhile to find the export menu, but it worked just fine. I verified the settings were saved by going into the import menu. It shows the export file with data and timestamps. Nice. Really wished that the 93sv had had this option.
I decided to order from Cabela's thinking that they would get enough units in that I would have a chance to get one along with all the pros who pre-ordered in January :) Cablela's came through for me.
Let me know if you have any questions. I'll get to them as I have time.
