I have an Xi5 and sans the absolutely horrible foot control it's served it's purpose well since 2014. To negate the less than stellar foot control I use heading lock and bump steer as I'm going down the bank. It is extremely effective and efficient for me.
I went out with a friend on his boat yesterday with a Ghost trolling motor. It absolutely would not navigate - period. The goofy part was I could use the HDS carbon, select a way point and the tell it to navigate to waypoint. I set it up to anchor after arriving at destination. Configured arrival mode range to 1'. It confirmed engaging auto pilot, laid down the track on the screen and then... nothing. Once it got sorta close to the way point but not really close being about 50'. I confirmed all the user interfaces relative to auto pilot were selected. Eventually I'd just have to cancel navigation to clear the nav track off of the screen. I checked the device list and saw the Gost Trolling Motor and the bow carbon was identified as the "Pilot control". According to Lowrance that's all I should see. Can't see the heading sensor.
I checked the current software version on the Ghost and on the Carbons. Not remembering what the current versions were I called Lowrance while on the water. Once connected, took about 25 mins hold time, I found out that both the Ghost and the Carbons needed updates installed. The "tech" thought maybe the heading sensor was suffering from efi/rfi interference. But... anchor lock worked flawlessly. Friend is going to install updates and we'll see what happens next time on the water.
I was considering going Ghost but an "issue" cropped up while on the water as well and is an absolute deal breaker for me. As noted I use 'Heading Lock' on my Xi5 and utilize 'bump steer' as I'm going down the bank. If the shoreline has a bump out or a bump in I just tap the foot control to adjust my heading as needed. Lowrance has 'Course Lock' - whatever that means. But what you can not do is utilize the bump steer method. If the foot pedal is touched it kicks it out of course lock rendering it pretty much useless. In the end a Ghost owner is married to the foot pedal while going down the bank fishing.
Other than the noted issues the Ghost preformed well. Steering was responsive and intuitive. Didn't take much getting used to. But I am so over having to be continually on the pedal while fishing it would be hard for me to chunk down the investment required to put a Ghost on my boat. Maybe the updates will heal the inability to navigate. The tech I spoke with did not mention anything about heading lock or some other means to adjust heading while going down the bank. So, I'm assuming that feature does not exist with the Ghost trolling motor.