Looking for a new gps/chartplotter recommend

[Walt C]

Any recommends on a new GPS/Chartplotter for using on my 22 C-Dory Cruiser, that will be on inland lakes and coastal waters. Pudget Sound, Lake Powell and inland lakes in Idaho, Washington, Montana and Oregon will be the main cruising areas. I've had a Garmin 531s and it did a good job, mainly on inland areas when I had my 19 C-Dory. I'm looking for an upgrade that would take the boat to the coastal waters. Will be purchasing from the Land & Sea catalogue. Thanks for any help you may have.

[chromer]

Lowrance HDS Touch. I have the 9 inch screen and 3G radar and cant say enough good things about the system

[Kushtaka]

+1 for Lowrance HDS. Go for Gen 2 or newer, the first generation doesn't work with a lot of the newer and forthcoming products.

I have an HDS Gen2 touch and it is excellent. The Gen3 will add chirp and wifi, which can be added to gen 2 for a $500 unit (sonarhub) and a $200 unit (WiFi-1). All depends on how important those add ons are.

They will soon be releasing an outboard autopilot at $1000 all in for hydraulic steering.

As I've posted on other threads, I've been lucky enough to outfit several boats at work with complete systems, and have a very new Furuno setup, and a very new (but not the newest dv era) Garmin setup. I also have a new Humminbird unit with 360 scanning sonar, which is cool, but the lowrance spotlight scan seems like a more cost effective tool.

With all this info, when I went to replace my electronics, I didn't opt for any of the gear I had at work, impressive though it all is. I went for lowrance HDS Gen 2, simply because it seemed to have figured out all of the little things that bothered me on my work boats.

Add to that the insight genesis mapping tools, and ability to make your own high resolution basemaps (I run shifting tidal channels, so seeing their movement is a big help when the nav markers don't keep pace with the shifting sand!), and generally geek out over actual first hand imagery of your favorite fishing spots.

I would add that I have no affiliation with any of these companies, and like all of their stuff. But for what I like to use my own boat for, the lowrance hds gen2 gear was the best fit I could find.

[thataway]

All of the systems are good. My personal prefernce is for Garmin. Their interface is easiest to use. Charts are good as any.

Size makes soe difference. The larger screen is easier to see, especially if you are moving fast, and the boat is bounding around. Some like touch screen, and others prefer the button and dial. I have both--and in rough weather, I prefere the dial/button. Also finger prints on the screen may be a distraction.

[ssobol]

Defender has the Simrad NSS7 and NSS* on sale through the weekly Active Captain discount. I don't have any experience with these units, but the price seems nice.

http://www.defender.com/activecaptain.jsp

In my experience touchscreens are a negative when things are moving about. And there's the fingerprints on the screen. (A desktop/laptop with a touchscreen seems like a lame idea to me.)

[williwaw]

Hey, if you're partial to Raymarine I'll make you a hellava deal on the e7D I'm selling!

[tsturm]

[hardee]

As I got to the bottom of the page reading this thread, there was an add for 10% off on Garmin.

I'm a bit partial to Garmin, mostly due to the intuitive menus. I spent some time at the SBS, and their big screen was really neat in that you could portion it with 1,2,3,4 different screens, in what ever size you wanted must by dragging the boarder lines.

I will second the notion that touch screens are, at least sometimes, a pain due to boat motion or finger marks.

My preference would be to go as big as you can afford, because you can then put several screens all active on the same one, For instance a close in GPS plotter screen, and wider view with Radar overlay and a bottom screen running under the close-in view.

It boils down to personal preference, so take a look at what you can first, if possible.

Harvey
SleepyC

[chromer]

I upgraded from a Raymarine C80. I see more information my 9" touch than I ever did with the old clunker (that's right i called the C80 a clunker in comparison). Sight lines improved and i can tile 4-way. Its a nice 6:9 ratio and not a square box like many of the others. They still provide hard keys if you like those. Personally, I hardly ever go for the hardware keys, except for the on/off. The only thing I wanted was pinch to zoom. With this unit you press some soft keys or use the hard keys. They have ptz in the Gen 3 coming this spring. The dirty screen worry doesn't mean a thing. it wipes off easy, water and slime doesn't affect it. It is the best thing I have put on this boat so far. It responds to touch when motion and pounding are present. Overlays for radar and sidescan on chart.

[Aurelia]

When trying out units on display, I tried the Garmin 1040xs/840xs interfaces and found a serious flaw at least for me.

The long row of soft keys along the right-hand edge of the screen correspond to functions/options as you go through menus. It was harder than I thought matching the proper key with the right row as I tried to visually keep the options lined up. If you have your face squared up well with the screen, it is much easier, but I am often operating a unit while viewing from a standing or other position and viewing and interacting with these buttons from angles had me hitting the wrong button much of the time. The simpler displays of the past at least had you highlighting options before selecting them so you had a clue of what was being chosen.

key/menu example:
http://www.thehulltruth.com/members/71698-albums7708-picture73391.jpg

This was more annoying than I would have ever guessed and I would go with a larger touch screen instead of that type if you want 7in+.

We have the 741xs touchscreen with RADAR in the 19 and its working great for us and does more than we even need with built-in wifi and good sonar. I would buy it again tomorrow for sure.

Greg

[RobLL]

Just a couple comments. The presenter at the Seattle Boat Show suggested considering iPhones and iPads, rather than a dedicated chart plotter. The big 'but' here is that I think you need a chart plotter to run an auto-pilot.

And I have been greatly disappointed with my 'land' Garmins. I cannot tell you how often they have been in serious, and occasionally dangerous error. I only trust them to get be back on route if I have made wrong turn, and even then I am wary.

[Aurelia]

When any of you are let down by your car GPS of any brand, you can blame the data 99 percent of the time and not the device or brand. Addressing data and marine charting data and in two different worlds with one having much more of a consistent, standardized history than the other. I would go into details but this is already sideways for this thread.

Greg
A guy to teaches people to create spatial data and not running out of that work any time soon....

[thataway]

[Aurelia]

Good to hear you got used to it Bob. I was just a bit surprised at myself and how much harder I had to look at the screen. More familiarity always helps. And like another poster mentioned, we also were really disappointing with the Lowrance Gen1 HDS unit we had. The newer touch units are much better.

Ipad navigation, imperfect but intuitive and more confidence inspiring than it probably has a right to be. Not for me. I know computers, and I know dedicated devices. I trust one much more than the other but will admit the ecosystem of hardware is starting to get a little blurred even for professionals.

Greg

[RobLL]

presenter at SBS: http://bitterendblog.com/

My "Land" Garmins have regularly presented information that could have been fatal to the naïve. I always use maps, and am pretty fussy about scale.