Garmin vs Humminbird Mapping

Last year my Humminbird Helix 10 stopped working (would only power up for 10 seconds, then freeze and reboot). The flat fee from Humminbird to get it fixed is over $600, so I opted to try a Garmin Echomap UHD 93sv. Overall I had no complaints about the Humminbird when it worked, but wasn’t happy that it only lasted a couple years. With the Garmin, I thought part of the sales pitch was that the built in mapping was high quality, so you wouldn’t have to buy additional chips. On two of the lakes I fish the most, Mille Lacs and Devils Lake, I found the Humminbird with Lakemaster chips to provide far superior mapping compared to the Garmin. Is there a map card upgrade for the Garmin? My other plan was to buy a used Helix 9/10 and run that just for mapping.

See if your garmin has any software updates. The mapping has had updates the last few years that are much better. I will say that overall the Lakemaster mapping on the humminbird is a little better than the Garmin maps, but not dramatic on the lakes I have fished. I do think you can buy upgraded maps now that navionics is now owned by Garmin.

You do the updates and map purchases via the active captain app on your phone and then sync to the Garmin, I’m not aware of a chip to buy. When I bought mine it gave one free map update within a year and now I haven’t upgraded maps in 3 years. I agree the stock maps are pretty bad. Looking at my app it says there is an update available for the stock lakevu chart so I will have to grab that.