furuno or lowrance?

persistent

persistent

Active Member
hey guys,

Im looking at upgrading my gps/ fishfinder combo. I am considering either the furuno 1870f or a lowrance hds unit. Any recomendations?

Thanks
 
I just picked up the A78. Can't wait to install it. Make sure you get the Wi-Fi version.
 
Boat I drove last season had HDS 10. Good unit easy to use.
If I had my druthers I would add a Furuno sounder to the Lowrance system.
From what I have experienced, the Furuno sounders have the best performance. gl
 
All the commercial boats had Furuno radar and Sounders for a reason.
 
Thanks guys

Im pretty much sold on the furuno, I currently have an eagle seacharter do you think i will be able tell the difference in sounder quality? I did briefly look at touch screen models but thought the screen would always be dirty. That would **** me off.
 
Have you gone and played with the 1870 yet? I did twice now and decided against it. I found it hard to navigate around and the charts were painful to get used to. Maybe after time they'd grow on me but I am not going to chance it.

Good Luck,
 
FWIW, I have a Furuno 1650DF GPS. Its an older unit (about 15 year old architecture) but it still works well. I liked it, but a lot of the "navigating" through the features was not that user friendly. I just upgraded to an HDS-8 and the ability to move around in the various modules is head and shoulders above the Furuno (bear in mind the 1650 is a 15 year old platform) I have no experience with newer Furuno units.
 
persistent said:
I did briefly look at touch screen models but thought the screen would always be dirty. That would **** me off.
Click to expand...

I have a Lowrance HDS 10 Touch out back and was worried about it being dirty etc. I have used it under a lot of conditions and even ran it during the tuna shootout. Messy hands are an understatement when tuna fishing lol. I just keep a little bit of fresh water handy and a nice soft shammy towel to wipe it off every once in a while. Zero problems with it so far. I love it. It is so easy to navigate it's not funny. Twice as fast as the other units I have with buttons.
 
Furuno by far...get the most expensive/best transducer you can afford for your application...and you'll never look back. If you really want to see fish....$$$$ on the transducer!!!

Same for Lowrance.

Raymarine a78 only good to 600 feet w/Chirp transducer...and the chirp Technology only works to 300 feet in clear water....at best. Read the reviews.

Or...buy used then wait for Chirp prices to come down and technology to become more advanced. In 2 years the Raymaine Chirp w/ cp-100 will look like crap.

Furuno 1850f is near end of product life and soon to be a disco from what I heard.

Raymarine a78 definitely a nice unit depending on depth you are fishing.
 
fishin_magician said:
If you really want to see fish....$$$$ on the transducer!!!

Same for Lowrance.
Click to expand...

Yup. With the new software updates from Navico, anything the Simrad NSS line will do the Lowrance HDS Gen2's and Touch's will do. You can run FULL chirp and even open array radar with the Lowrance units now. I am in the process of installing a Simrad BSM-2 black box with an Airmar TM265 transducer. Apparently there are some other hidden features that will be coming out shortly. I hate this type of "jack in the box" mentality of theirs, but I'll be waiting lol. Lowrance is the working mans electronics and the most bang for the buck IMO. These new features are pretty cool to say the least. Once my new sonar set up is finally installed I'll be posting up a report for sure.

Cheers,
Sculpin
 
finaddict said:
FWIW, I have a Furuno 1650DF GPS. Its an older unit (about 15 year old architecture) but it still works well. I liked it, but a lot of the "navigating" through the features was not that user friendly. I just upgraded to an HDS-8 and the ability to move around in the various modules is head and shoulders above the Furuno (bear in mind the 1650 is a 15 year old platform) I have no experience with newer Furuno units.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be fair to draw conclusions on the modern Furuno systems from that old 1600 series (as finaddict rightly points out).

But that 1650 is not even in the same universe as the Furuno systems on the market today.

here's a screen shot of what I saw when I turned on my new Furuno chartplotter last week:



 
Last edited by a moderator:
sharphooks said:
It wouldn't be fair to draw conclusions on the modern Furuno systems from that old 1600 series (as finaddict rightly points out).

But that 1650 is not even in the same universe as the Furuno systems on the market today.

here's a screen shot of what I saw when I turned on my new Furuno chartplotter last week:



Click to expand...

Wow That is very cool!
 
I finally got the heading sensor installed. The boat icon now shows proper orientation parallel to the dock in "Course Up" the way it should
 
It's a Time Zero Touch (Tzt)

Here's the same screen shot with a radar over-lay.




The Navnet3D does all the same stuff---just doesn't have the touch-screen. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have kept my Navnet3D---there's something reassuring about pushing soft buttons and twisting knobs---probably why they'll have to pry my Blackberry and its keyboard out of my cold dead hands
 
I'd go touch screen my Lawrence hds7 with buttons is terrible for navigating menus. Great unit, terr
 
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