So I have always had garmin electronics. What am i giving up and or gaining with switching to a current raymarine unit? If any of you out there have made the switch I would like to know more about it.
If you are happy with the Garmin units stay with them. My opinion is that Garmin are much more intuitive to use and the most reliable. I have had a decent amount of time with Raymarine units and have never bee very happy with the menus, controls and speed of the unit. Find one to play with before you buy for sure.
Iain Pelto
Sea Hunt Triton 160 w/ 90 ETEC “JB3”
Native Manta Ray 14
I had a Raymarine C Series on my Mako before I sold it, after 4 years I still had to refer to the manuals for operations. Ray has decent electronics just overly complicated functions. Were I switching I’d make a comparison from Garmin to Lowrance or Simrad. I think it took me about and hour to become proficient with the Lowrance HDS10 Gen2.
Mark
Pioneer 222 Sportfish Yamaha F300
Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal? I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.
“Life’s tough…It’s even tougher if you’re stupid” John Wayne
Since your last post indicated you are now looking at used Pursuit 345s, I assume that you are running into the fact that most of those boats have factory installed Raymarine electronics. I went from being a 15 year Garmin user to the factory installed Raymarine on my boat kicking and screaming. I have a friend with an older C-Series on his sailboat, and another with a twin C-Series setup on his Tiara, and I hated, HATED them.
That said, the newer E wide series you are likely to encounter are not bad. My boat came with an E120W, and I’ve installed a Raymarine autopilot and a new e7. It all networks together nicely. The menus and are better and more intuitive than they used to be, and the touch screens work well. You will need a gold or platinum Navionics chip to match the Garmin’s charts, but with them, it’s all a pretty good setup. Raymarine support has been excellent. They have answered the phone in English, called back and have a forum where you can get answers from a factory rep fairly quickly.
The only problem was been the well documented DSM Lost Connection issue, which usually relates to power. Search The Hull Truth for details.
Again, I’ll be glad to give you a run through on my boat sometime if you want.