you get exactly what you pay for, they(electronics manufactures) make sure of that. You want nice charts? Its going to cost. Side view? Its going to cost. Big screen? Its going to cost. Back when I worked at the yacht dealer(2005), we had a customer that spent $15000 on electronics for his 45 ft motor yacht. I thought that was outrageous. It included two 12 inch screens, radar, depth, gps, weather fax, sat radio, and three closed circuit cameras. I looked at a Freeman 47 the other day, one display, not including the other display, any software, and plug ins or peripherals, was $15000. I've got a 5 inch Lowrance Hook combo unit that works pretty good for me on my 17 Sea Hunt. I think I paid $400? for it. The gps is accurate enough to follow tracks, but its only back up for paying attention to where I'm going. I never use my gps as primary navigation(remember that acknowledgement you have to click on before using the gps screen) inshore or around other boats. I only use gps as a primary when trying to locate bottom structure offshore when theres no other point of reference. If you use the base map of any unit, you will not get that much information, they sell upgrades for a reason. I've found that even with the best upgrades, theres stuff on there that gets left out or forgotten. If you have the old school laminated charts, theres a lot of stuff on them that may not appear in even the best upgraded charts. Once you find those places, save them in your gps. I caught a nice Cobia over structure that no one else was fishing because it wasn't on the included electronic charts. It was pretty obvious where the electronic charts showed structure, it was a traffic jam. We would have been alone if not for one other guy was paying attention to his sounder when he came by us heading to the crowd. I put more emphasis in the sounder than the gps for fishing. There's a lot to be learned looking at the sounder. The unit I have now doesn't have side scan, but it will definitely be on my next unit. One thing that must be stressed, get a unit that you can operate easily. I've been on boats where we had to carry teh manual around with us to be able to input waypoints and save stuff. You want something that you can operate without thinking too much. I'm on so many different oats, I can usually pick my way thru the system onboard to get it operational, but it still takes some time, and teh time to learn isn't when you're offshore. Garmin excels in this way. My Lowrance is pretty easy. Ive gor friends that run Humming Bird Helix, Garmin, Lowrance, etc... Find something that you are comfortable with. And if you are heading offshore, remember a compass. We use a grease pencil and write our heading out, or any changes on the windshield, that way, if the gps fails, we can figure our way back home. Keep those old laminated maps around as well
