I have been looking at getting a fishfinder for my kayak, and have been looking at a couple of them.  My question has to do with the pixels.  I understand the concept of vertical and horizontal pixels, and the more the better resolution.  I will do primarily all my fishing in water that is 50 feet or less.  So fishing in water to the ones i typically described is it necessary to get something with a lot of pixels, or is it just overkill?  Obviously you will get better resolution, but is it worth the money?  Will something that has 640V pixels be a lot better than something with 320V pixels.   Note that i am looking at fishfinders $200 or less, nothing to crazy.   Also does anyone use the humminbird 565?

I don't believe you can have too many vertical pixels. I believe at 50 feet a pixel is about an inch of bottom change so 12 pixels is not showing great detail. Both of my sounders are older (so am I) with the console being about 15 years (240 pixels) and the TM sounder probably 10 (320). When I really want to see bottom I always zoom in to the bottom.

I only fish 50' deep in the warmest part of the summer summer and usually only 25' to maybe 40' even then.

If I were buying a new sounder it would have more pixels than I could afford and color.

To answer that in relative terms-if you were buying a flat panel TV, your choices would be 720 pitch or 1080 pitch. You want to watch true high definition programs or videos, which one would you want? IF you can afford the highest resolution, you should not settle for less.

The more pixels the unit has, the better resolution you will get.

If you have a catalog, BPS or others, compare prices and notice pixel count.

My 2 cents is...  Fishin Buddy 1200 from Bottom Line:  $100.00, totally portable and light weight, runs 40 hours on 'C' batteries, 'sidefinder' views off to the side, shows bottom composition and depth, temperature, auto scaling of depth, no drilling needed, and mounts on a jon or canoe or could be adapted to kayak.