I’ve been putting this off long enough. Time to upgrade the electronics on my Key West 1720. I’m thinking about the Garmin 531 or 441. However there are some smoking deals on some lowrance models that have the DSI. I just have never used Lowrance. Does anybody have any knowledge or personal experience with these?
Troutman, post this on Fishing Discussion and you will get more info I think. Wildlifesc is an electronics Guru on this site tho.
Good Luck.
My next upgrade will be a Simrad.
NN
07, 23 Key West, Twin 115 Yammys
“Coastal Bound”
A lot of my buddies have lowrance units and love them… I have the Garmin 541 and I like it… Cracker Larry on here has been around boats for a long time and he likes the hummingbird units. My advice would be the the screen on the Garmin 441 is to small you won’t be happy with it… Maybe bigger really is better? Don’t tell my wife!
2007 Scout 221 150 Yamaha 4 stroke
When Lowrance work, they work very well. But often they don’t and the customer service really sucks. Garmins work well and have good customer service too but their charting software is proprietary and very expensive. Not too bad for small area coverage but if you travel a lot the individual charts get real expensive. I prefer a unit that uses Navionics charts. My Humminbird with Navionics covers the entire US east coast, the GOM and the northern Bahamas in one reasonable package and I can duplicate the plotter on my smart phone.
Edit: Example…, just listed in the Swap Shop…
" Garmin Blue Chart…Charleston to Jacksonville $149 OBO.
Navionics will cover almost the entire east coast, west coast of Florida and northern Bahamas for less than that. I fish from North Carolina to the Keys, the gulf coast and the Bahamas. It would take $1000 or more in Garmin charts to cover my fishing area.
Capt. Larry Teuton
Cracker Built Custom Boats
“Ships are the nearest things to dreams that hands have ever made.” -Robert N. Rose
All new Garmin units has the entire US coast/Bahamas maps built in Larry. No need to buy software since the 392-492 and 398-498 units were introduced, even though they still used Garmin’s proprietary cartridges for uploading/storing waypoints, adding bathymetric contour maps and performing software updates. All newer Garmin units using MMC/SD cards carry the entire US/Bahamas charts.
I’m with Larry however, the 441s is a tad small with only a 4 inch screen. This really becomes apparent in split screen mode with map & sonar. The 5 inch screen is much larger side by side. The detail of the 441’s charts is also lacking as the pixel resolution is less than the 541. The 546 has VGA resolution of 640 x 480 pixels, but not worth the extra $$$ unless you are targeting bottom fish, stripers or deep holing shrimp.
Lowrance/Simrad (Navionics) offers cutting edge technology…but it’s rushed to market with software bugs. Horrible tech support. Did I say horrible? Sorry…I meant horriblest. With that said, Lowrance introduced “broadband” low power sonar years ago…way ahead of today’s newest “Chirp” sonar…and good bang for the buck.
Furuno is great…but almost takes an engineer to operate. Good support…but very technical for the layperson.
Raymarine is Raymarine. Good stuff but pricey. Good support with front line techs that know the equipment, not someone reading from a script.
Humminbird used to make toys…but are making good stuff and are improving every year, plus you get a lot of features for the price.
Sometimes I wish I had paid the extra cash for the 546… That being said I fish and deep hole shrimp just fine with the 541. Sonar is definitely better on other units but the ease of use with Garmin is worth it in my opinion. I’m glad Jim steered me towards Garmin when I purchased mine.
2007 Scout 221 150 Yamaha 4 stroke
Jim is the expert on this for sure, I have a 1720 also and have the 441 Garmin with the blue chart charleston-jacksonville(i believe thats what its called)shows simulated under water 3d contours,great detail on sonar and the tide info is also great. Cant go wrong with this unit, on a side note Garmin is great about updating these units aswell
Boy its gettin reel deep in here…