Two units vs One

I’m curious how others choose between buying two 7″ vs one 9″ display.

The HELIX 9 CHIRP MEGA SI GPS G2N is $1299.

or I can buy HELIX 7 CHIRP SI GPS G2N for $799 and a HELIX 7 CHIRP GPS G2N for $549. Totalling $1349.

So for $50 more I can get a lot more screen real estate. I give up the opportunity to get MEGA in the 7″ family. Is it worth it?

Having two units at the helm is nice, I bought am extra base for my 788 so I use it as my bow mount when up there and as a second unit at helm when there. (10″ permanently at the helm) I’d be real hard pressed to not get a mega unit if I was upgrading though, the screen shots I’ve seem with it are just plain cool.

I personally would go with a Mega for now and then save up and buy used for a second unit. I buy all my units slightly used and have saved boatloads. You can probably even get a 10 Mega used for the price of the 9 over the winter.

With a Helix 7, I believe you give up more than screen size. We discovered from another thread that the 7 doesn’t have the same buttons or menu choices as a 9 of any model, Mega or otherwise. I’d get a 9 and save for a 7 as a second but my way of thinking is that I’d use one of them fro a dedicated screen that only has one view while the other would have a split view of something other than the dedicated screen.

Absolutely 2 units.

One mapping, one sonar capabilities.

I have good vision so 7″ screen is more than adequate to see what I need to see, would bigger be better heck yeah, but we all don’t have thousands to spend on stuff.

With that said lately I’d be hard pressed to not get a new unit without mapping capabilities, if the 7 doesn’t have it then I’d rethink the equation.

SuperDave1959 wrote:

With a Helix 7, I believe you give up more than screen size. We discovered from another thread that the 7 doesn’t have the same buttons or menu choices as a 9 of any model, Mega or otherwise. I’d get a 9 and save for a 7 as a second but my way of thinking is that I’d use one of them fro a dedicated screen that only has one view while the other would have a split view of something other than the dedicated screen.

That’s how I have mine. On the helm I have a 2D Helix 10 (networked with a 998 on the bow to get SI) and a 2D Chirp 7. I use the 10 to bounce between SI and gps, and the 7 always on 2D sonar.

Since I’m running the original version of SI I’m eventually going to sell off the 998, move the 10 to the bow and get a Mega 10 for the helm next to the 7.

Thanks all. Great advice! Pretty consistently confirming that regardless of the level I spend, two smaller units are better than one larger one.

fishingchallenged wrote:

Thanks all. Great advice! Pretty consistently confirming that regardless of the level I spend, two smaller units are better than one larger one.

Well, no. The 7″ birds don’t have the preset buttons and the screen resolution is not as good as larger units.

fishingchallenged wrote:

Thanks all. Great advice! Pretty consistently confirming that regardless of the level I spend, two smaller units are better than one larger one.

Not necessarily. I lived with one 10 for a few years until I found the 7. It was a lot of flipping back and forth but that is what’s great about the 3 preset buttons. Like I said in a previous thread I’ll never use SI on a screen smaller than 10 again. Way too much stuff to see on such a small screen.

to get the full benefits of SI, you need a larger screen…what’s nice with today’s networking, you can buy a much cheaper bow unit and share the SI/DI transducer…

When running SI i also have the mapping going to figure out what structure is where. How big is the map, and how big is the SI when combined on a 10″ screen?

One more vote for a single, large screen. It’s all about the side-imaging! Plus, the Mega imaging is crazy good and if I were upgrading there’s no way I’d be without it (on a 9″ screen minimum).

Anyway, have fun with the new stuff no matter what you choose!