What's up guys, looking for some input on new Lowrance electronics for my boat. I'll need both front and rear graphs, but I have absolutely NO idea where to start. I'm lucky enough this year to have a Lowrance sponsorship and get 50% off, but I still want to keep the price relatively reasonable...

 

So, what units do you guys run? Pro's/con's? Most bang for buck?

 

What would YOU recommend? 

I only really have experience with one and it's the Elite-7 HDI unit.  I've had it for a few years now and I like it but I haven't really used it all that much.  I actually bought it to use on my buddies boat and figured I'd use it on my own eventually but never got a boat.  I know have a kayak and mounted it last week. Can't wait to get out and use it more.

 

What my friend and I really liked was the GPS tracking.  It was great for marking fish and keeping us in the right area.  The walleye we were catching were in a pretty specific spot and this helped a ton.  The sonar part of it I haven't mastered yet but it does work well, I just need to learn to read it better.  Haven't had much of a chance to use the down scan yet.  I really like how easy it is to switch screens and have the ability to have GPS, sonar and down scan all on the screen at once and still be large enough to see.

It's going to depend a lot on what relatively reasonable means to you and what exactly you need it to do.

 

As far as Lowrance goes, I would take a look at the Elite 7ti. It does a fair amount for an $800 unit. Might be less than that now. I don't know. I have one I bought about 6 months ago. Assuming nothing has changed, it comes with a total scan transducer. I know that there are ways to mount that on a trolling motor but I think they involve modifying the skeg on the tm. Just something to be mindful

of. 

 

The unit does side scan, down scan, and will do CHIRP sonar (if structure scan is off). It's GPS as well. 

 

I feel like it's a solid graph. One other thing. If you intend to buy a map card, I would highly recommend going navionics. I have navionics on one unit and lake insight on the elite 7. It doesn't give me quite as much insight as I'd like. 

I would go with the hds series. The elite and ti series are great stand alone units, but since you want front and rear units, the ability to link units together to share waypoints and other info will be great help. 

1 hour ago, junyer357 said:

I would go with the hds series. The elite and ti series are great stand alone units, but since you want front and rear units, the ability to link units together to share waypoints and other info will be great help. 

 

I'm pretty sure you can link two HDI units together if all you're doing is sharing waypoints.

With the hds you can also share imaging, waypoints, gps atennas, sonar, and more. 

Looks like I am limited to the Gen 3 HDS units. Do any of you guys have the 9 and wish you went with the 7, or vice versa? Huge price difference between the two...

I don't have the gen 3 series but I do have an HDS7 and its great.  The unit I think is a gen 2.  Unfortunately my console only allows me to put a 7 inch screen flush mounted so I can't really go any bigger.  If you can afford it and your console allows it, I would go with the bigger screen.

 

I've owned a dumpster full GPS units, sonar units, paper graphs, 2D & 3D down-scanners,

side-imaging units (Humminbird Onix), ad nauseam

 

I've never been happier with any chartplotter as I am with the "Lowrance Elite 7Ti"

The "Ti" stands for 'Touchscreen Interface', which IMO is a must have

                    

Roger

 

 

If you have a Lawrance sponsorship the local rep will set up what you need.

Tom