Looking to upgrade my units. Wondering if anyone has had any issues with the Garmin units? I’ve owned Lawrence and hummingbird in the past. I don’t know much about the Garmin units. Any good or bad information is helpful.
I’ve run Garmin units for two years now with no issues. On the facebook forum there have been a couple people who have ice units catch fire, but wiring shorting out seems to have been the problem and Garmin replaced the units. Some down home modifications seems to fixed that problem. After one year with the Striker 7, I’m now running the EchoMap 73sv and while it’s resolution is probably not as good as the Bird Mega units it’s still better than standard birds in my opinion and at the time I purchased Lowrance units did not even compare.
Garmin will have a new product coming out the second quarter which looks like it will rival or surpass the Mega units. We will see, but for now I’m more than satisfied with my Garmin units. Panoptix is a game changer for now. The built in maps I have found to be comparable to Lakemaster, but the quickdraw feature is fantastic.
I have a EchoMap Chirp 93sv with 2 seasons on it,and have never had a issue.
My boat had and older graph about 15 years old, along with a flasher. So the Garmin was a big upgrade for me, and it did not disappoint.
If I need to upgrade in the future it will more than likely be a Garmin.
Seem to be nice units but have not heard one good thing regarding the mapping. accuracy seems to be hit or miss with them for some reason. Other than that the features you get for the cost is hard to beat
Purchased a Garmin unit for my boat and after about 5 months had it start to malfunction. called Garmin so I could get a RAN number. They won’t do anything until they give you one. But before they are willing to give you a RAN number they want you to check your voltage and amps going to the unit. They require you do the process of elimination before they will let you send it back. I will admit that after alot of back and forth with them they finally gave me the number and sent me a brand new unit. But be prepared to jump through some hoops.
After 10+ years of running nothing but Lowrance I finally made the switch over to Garmin last year and replaced all 3 of HDS units this spring to the Garmin 7610s with the Panoptix transducer. So far I’m very impressed with the units.
I love my 73sv great picture and accurate GPS. The pre loaded maps are good enough for me. Sure I would like better maps but who wouldnt. But I can make my own as I go that are more accurate than anything you can buy from anyone. And I read somewhere that Garmin bought navionics so the cards will probably be coming soon anyway. And then there’s the panoptics option.
Maps are subpar. Everything else is great.
Garmin recently bought out the Navionics company.
Expect their mapping updates to become exponentially better in the near future.
I have a pair of 73sv Plus units on my boat.
They are seeing the water for the first time today.
Been running 93SV and 73dv for 2 years now. No issues the units are linked and share waypoints and tracks. The quickdraw feature is a gamechanger. Mapping is decent, but with quickdraw it can be superb if you want to put the time in. The new plus units being touch screen have my interest.
Thank you Great feedback.
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