I am looking to buy a new sonar (maybe gps? as well) for the front of my boat. Was at BPS this weekend for "research" and asked the guy what he thought the best unit for 500$ or under was and he said the Lowrance X102C (retails for 499.99). Then he said if I could go up another 150$, springing for the Lowrance LMS 332 would be the thing to do because it has all the bells and whistles of the x102c plus GPS. Any thoughts on these units? Or any other units between 500-650?

This is probably like are blondes better than redheads.....the only thing I know is my neighbor bought a new boat last Spring, and he is on his third Lowrance sonar/gps unit, and is very disatisfied with Lowrance.....I think he spent well over 1,000. bucks on it....color, expandable modules, the whole deal.

If you go with the Lowrance GPS, you might as well add on another $100 for a chip holding the maps of lakes. Otherwise you will only have Map Create which won't show much. I am not sure what all you can do with only the gps, mine is back ordered :'(

Sorry to hear about your friend's misfortunes. I've heard a lot of good things about Humminbird recently, so I may look into those as well.

The 332c is a great color unit with GPS.  I don't think there is another color sonar/gps in that price range that comes anywhere close.  After that, the prices start going up dramatically as the screens get bigger.  As far as mapping goes, the 332c takes a SD or MMC card, and you can download some free maps from the Lowrance site or buy chips from lakemaster, Navionics, hot spots, etc.

The best way to decide if it will do what you want is go to their web site and downloand the 332c emulator.  You can try out every feature on the computer just as if you were in the store or on the water.

GL

Unless you want to get into the high dollar commercial units, the Lowrance's hard to beat as far as performance goes.  Not saying by no means they are the best quality, but they perform better than most in the same price range.  I've owned a bunch of them over the years and most have fogged the screen to some degree but have never had one to fail and have never had another brand less than $500 to match their performance.

I'm from the old school and will not buy a combination unit.  If one half fails usually both are dead.  I still buy seperate gps/sonar.  Yes, they take up more room but you only have to upgrade or replace on one at the time.

Otherwise you will only have Map Create which won't show much.  :'(

Actually Map Create 6 only comes with the larger units and the bassmaster combo.  It doesn't come with either the 332C or the LMS-480, both GPS/Fishfinder units.  If you're looking for a fishfinder for the console, get a gps.  If you're thinking about putting it up on the deck, check out either the X102C or the X135.  I don't think color is necessary and the X135 is a more powerful unit (4000 watts as opposed to only 2,400).  You can see a maribou crappie jig in 30 feet with a X135 ($399).

I have the LMS332... You can buy a SD card at any circuit city, wal-mart or anywhere else that has cameras or computers for pretty cheap. I got a 512MB SD card for $39 and found that you don't need that much... you could get a 128 MB card for $19. (I have about 12 lakes and a bunch of points saved and only used something like 10MB so far. All I use are the free "upgraded" maps, downloadable through lowrance.com. My local lakes were not available in the hot spots or other pre-loaded chips which is how I ended up only using the free maps. They are better than most paper maps and using the splitscreen GPS/sonar when looking for humps, drops, etc. is great... I was shocked at how accurate these are. I have yet to need to zig zag when looking for a feature... I have hit it on the first try every time. (credit the unit not the operator.)

I say money well spent for the 332, and the color screen and night screen is so much easier on the eyes... I didn't initially want color but wouldn't give it up now for anything.

I echo the advice of Cebo... the simulator is good to experiment with also I take my SD card from the boat and use that info on the simulator (in the comfort of home) to mark stuff and review saved points for future use, just by saving it back to the card. To do that you only need a card reader/writer that plugs into the USB port on your computer. Oh, you need the reader anyway to save all the free maps to the card for use in the unit.

i'm a proponant of keeping the gps and sonar separate for one reason and I believe it has already been stated in this thread. if one part breaks they both do

I run a garmin 72s mounted right next to my x71 it do's the job great and I have the piece of mind that if one breaks I still have the other

I also have the 332c and I agree with everything said so far. It is setup so everything can be found easily. However there is one thing I must strongly disagree with. Although it may have been true in the past if one thing goes the entire unit doesn't. My 332 was installed new when we bought the boat in the spring. As we later found out the gps head unit was bad from the beginning. The fish finder still worked flawlessly, but the gps features didn't. So atleast with if the gps goes out the rest of the unit very well might still work. Or this may have been an isolated case as I understand the feeling of one thing goes then the rest follows. Once we got a new one put in there have been no problems.

bassdocktor