Should I still go with gen 2 touch

Last year I bought a gen 2 touch. It was the 9 inch unit. At the time my plans were to get the 12 and 7 to finish my upgrade.Now I see that gen 3 is out. so should I finish my upgrade with the gen 2 touch or go to the 3? The difference don’t really jump out at me. I’m a little concerned that they added button. What’s up with that. Was there issues with the all touch screens. My 9 works great but I down fish as much as I would like so does not get a ton of use.

The reason they added the buttons was to keep up with the other brands that have touch screen plus buttons, and to satisfy their customers who also wanted buttons. I personally don’t trust the touch screens longevity, so I won’t buy a gen 2(even though I haven’t heard anything really failing on them yet). The Gen3s do have some upgrades though. Apparently a better GPS antenna, CHIRP sonar, faster processor and improved screen. If your happy with your 2s, save some $ and get some on sale. If you can justify the extra coin, go 3s.

Gen 3 also has wifi.

biggill wrote:

Gen 3 also has wifi.

Looking at adding a 12″ HDS to supplement my 9 touch as well. I like the idea of WIFI on the Gen 3 but I don’t like the price.

A used HDS-12 head unit linked to the 9 Touch + Lowrance GoFree wireless unit would be a good alternative in comparison to a $3000 + Gen 3.

The touch screen is slick, though.

You should research the added features of the Gen3 and see if you will actually use all those bells and whistles and make it worth the extra bucks. If not, and you like your touch unit, just stay with the touch units and save some dollars.
Personally, I upgraded from LCX units over the last year. I HATE touch screens and the added features in the touch model aren’t important to me. So I went with used Gen2 units with the hotkeys (which do everything I need) and saved a ton of bucks that made it easy to afford StructureScan.
The Gen3 added buttons back in for guys like me that don’t like touch screens.

When selecting a new unit, it’s about value. What features do you need and at what cost? I still have a flip-phone because it does all I need.

Cabelas’ shad the HDS-8 Gen2 Insight on sale for $799.00
Non touch

I have the Gen 3 hds 12 touch and love it. I like the extra buttons because it makes it faster to use but I find I use a combination of both the touch and buttons and it is much easier than one or the other. The chirp is nice. You have (at the touch of the screen 200,83,50hz,high,medium,and low chirp) I find that I switch back and forth depending on where and what I am fishing but the chirp is deffinently clearer! Also having buttons for when it is cold and I have gloves on is awesome. It is all first world problems anyway. You can’t go wrong with any 12″screen. You can 4 way split it and still see everything well.

Thanks everyone. I went with the gen2 touch.so I now have the 12inch and the 9 inch on the dash and the 7inch on the bow. I just couldn’t justify the extra money for the gen 3. I just don’t think there is a whole lot of difference between the 2 and the 3. Besides…. On top of the awesome price on got I’m getting a 200 dollar rebate for each unit. So I will probably end up getting the wireless module with the rebate money . Anyway thanks for all your opinions.

They are both great units. The biggest thing for most anglers on the gen3 is Chirp technology, faster processor and internal gps. Gen2 are great and now with the 4.0 update the User Interface looks the same as a gen3.

Yes I did the update on the 3 units. Will probably pull the trigger on the motorguide xi5 next year

If anyone is interested in a pair of LCX 28hd I’ll be selling mine soon. I also have the old lake master chips for, mn, wi, rainy/woods, Michigan,and Devils lake. May be selling them also.

I would like to buy your old rainy/woods chip. Its the only one that will work for my LMS 337 I think. What year is the chip?