I currently have a Lowrance Hook2 5 (Tripleshot with side scan) on my kayak and have been wanting to upgrade to something with a 7" screen. I think my Hook2 was just fine for my first fishfinder, but I think my old eyes need the bigger screen to see more detail.

 

My first inclination was to pick up a new Hook Reveal, but the Humminbird Helix Mega Di and SI looks like it provides a lot more detail. I've considered Mega Live or something similar, but that may be overkill on my kayak. With the unit I'm looking at I can add Mega Live in teh future anyway.

 

If you have the Mega SI and DI, how do you like it? And if you've had a Hook2, is the Humminbird Mega a leap forward or a baby step?

I have some direct experience here. I have a helix 7 msi gps g3.  My dad has the lowrance elite ti with triple shot transducer. Some thoughts.

 

the helix 7 is a great unit. Dial it in, get the speed right, find your preferred color pallette. It has lots of fine scale and advanced features to really tweak the imaging. In clear water I can watch rocks as I pass and see them appear on the screen. Button pressing is more annoying then touch screen, but the menu layout is smart and the fast menu on first press simplifies things and speeds it up. I’ll take image quality over touch screen. 
 

the elite ti triple shot (which should be comparable to your newer hook with a triple shot) is really easy to learn (short learning curve).  I picked it up in about 10 minutes laying on the front deck while my dad kept fishing above me last year. The image quality is good, I’d call it 85% of the helix. Between last year and this year, reading the manual, playing with settings, I could never get his image quality as good as mine. 
 

my helix has the smaller transducer. It doesn’t have a dedicated down imaging piezo, instead it uses the side imaging return and manipulates them. Mine is also not mega +. Not sure which helix you’re looking at, but a mega + is even crisper. 
 

the photo is a snip from a larger iPhone 7 picture and you can still see individual grass stalks.
 

if you are looking at the helix 7, you cannot add mega 360 in the future. You need the bigger units for that. 

8 hours ago, casts_by_fly said:

if you are looking at the helix 7, you cannot add mega 360 in the future. You need the bigger units for that. 

 

Thanks for the feedback. In the future, I'm not looking at the Mega 360 as an upgrade. Rather, I'm considering the new Mega Live.

i think bass pro has the Garmin echomap 93sv on sale with transducer for $699. Not sure if its the old GT54 transducer but thats a pretty decent deal. Obviously you can use garmin's panoptix/livescope later on if you wanted.  

22 hours ago, Koz said:

If you have the Mega SI and DI, how do you like it?

LOVE IT. Switched from Garmin EchoMap Ultras and I don't care what anyone says, Humminbird has the best SI in the game. Even though Garmins SideVu can hit the same megahurtz range as Humminbird with their UHD, it's just not the same... you will be very happy with Mega SI/DI