Simrad vs. Lowrance

Anyone gone the Simrad route? Same parent company but heard that Simrad is a better unit with better customer service.

TIA

I bought a Hook2 7 this summer. I was on the hunt for a deal another setup for either the front or the port side so I could see my jig while sharpsooting. I stumbled on a Simrad G07 XSR with the TotalScan transducer. From what I can see with the Touchscreen this is probably the equivalent of the Elite Series Lowrance.

I’ve not put the Simrad in the water yet but I have played with it in the living room. It seems to be fairly easy to operate easy enough to switch back and forth from one screen to the next or combinations.

I haven’t gone very deep into my Lowrance but from what I can tell they make it a little easier to navigate and function. That said I think the Simrad has greater capabilities at the expense of it not being as automated or dumbed down for roundheads like me. For instance I hadn’t sonar settings on chirp high and wanted to switch to sidescan (or whatever they call it) and it told me it couldn’t do that in chirp settings. So I’d have to go back in the sonar settings and change it to 83(?) or 200 kHz. Pretty sure I didn’t have to do anything like that with the Hook2 – it either did it automatically, was able to work with that or it could be I didn’t know what I was doing with that yet either. Still really learning. The last depth finder I bought was an eagle probably 30 some years ago.

One thing I am curious about is the two units have two different total scan transducers. I believe they are both the all in one (I’m certain the Hook2 is) but the one that came eith the Simrad is just a hair bigger/wider and has a different mount. I’m anxious to get it mounted and see how they compare on the water side by side.

I would like to use one of them for ice fishing but need a different transducer. I haven’t looked to see what my options are yet for either. I did see in the Lowrance there was an ice fishing mode. Not sure what that does different.

The maps on the Lowrance are much more detailed in one foot increments on most maps I look at / use. I bought the avionics chip for it and frankly don’t see much if any difference between the preloaded and the Navionics. I was told the was a chip in the Simrad but I’m not sure which it is. Neither the preloaded or chip maps are a detailed.

I’ll get my boat back in Feb and hopefully be on the Miss shortly after that and compare them.

I wouldn’t know about customer service for Lowrance because I haven’t needed it.

biggill wrote:

I wouldn’t know about customer service for Lowrance because I haven’t needed it.

I had to call them once,it was because I didnt read the dang owners manual plus I didnt have it with me on the lake !!
now I have it downloaded on my phone,no excuses now by gum !!
well,I guess I could drop the phone in the lake.
carry on.