Thoughts on Simrad go7xse or garmin 74dv

vangoalie

Active Member
Thinking of buying a simrad go7 Xse or garmin 74dv, looking for thoughts on it, great, bad, unreliable, stay with Lowrance. Even ease of use so I can decide yes or no.

thanks
 
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The Simrad I think is better than the Lowrance just my opinion from owning both. Simrad and Lowrance same company. I haven't has issues with mine I have the Simrad G07 which is pretty much same as what you are looking at except I can't add radar.

Pretty easy to use. The biggest thing I notice is processor speed. Loads map faster. The more higher end ones have the control joystick which is big plus.
 
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ford chevy queston....lol
have gone simrad but always quality used.
as the price of new stuff in the larger screens is beyond my budget.
but did bite the bullet on a new SS-175 high wide transducer almost 2k
 
The guy I buy my stuff from (Gil@semperfi fishing on TheHullTruth) mentions reliability issues with Navico (Simrad/Lowrance) - never owned one. I have had a couple Garmin's over the last 20 years. No failures, but support has gone downhill a bit. Gil thinks Garmin has better CHIRP for saltwater (lot's of computer processing going on with CHIRP). For sounder use, transducer choice is probably more important than F/F brand. It all depends on expectations and fishing style - I am a mover; nothing going on, move. I want a F/F that I am confident will mark Salmon, just not bait balls as I have fished bait balls w/o catching Salmon.

I fished with David Murphy a couple years back; all his boats use Simrad CHIRP & we could see Salmon swimming towards the lure, so the Simrad stuff he uses works well but I doubt you will touch the stuff he has for under $4K.
 
think the way MFD's and sonar has gone in the last couple of years there all of a much the same no ones really ahead of any one else ..
just depends how much you want to spend ....
i see guys out in little zodiacs /tinny s catching and there not running anything fancy for electronics ....
its just another money pit hole we fall into ....
 
its just another money pit hole we fall into ....
True, but being retired I know how deep my pit can be.
Furuno is way ahead for useful saltwater side scan sonar ($4K for the black box/ducer) but otherwise it is probably down to reliability/support. With Furuno I can post a screenshot on their support forum & get an answer from a well qualified support engineer in under 24 hours.
i see guys out in little zodiacs /tinny s catching and there not running anything fancy for electronics ....
If you know the local area well, that knowledge trumps money. I fish a lot of different areas & like eating fish.
 
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