Washington Fishing

The Online Source for Washington Fishing Information

which one do you guy prefer 

Views: 638

Replies to This Discussion

LOWRANCE

Each has an advantage: the Bird wins on side imaging, but Lowrance's down imaging is far superior. I prefer Lowrance personally though and will be going with their Gen 3s here soon.

what are the pro and cons for both

I am a Humminbird guy. Much easier to use. You don't have to push four different tabs just to go from mapping to side imaging etc. I think both work great. As bass guys we don't really use the units as demanding as saltwater guys. Much shallower depths. Humminbird customer service beats Lowrance hands down. I had a Lowrance before I bought my Birds and the negative interaction with their customer service department made me switch. I vowed to never use Lowrance again. Humminbird also has a program called Humminbird select if you buy the bigger units that provides a special customer service number that is very easy to get ahold of a real person. Humminbird also had a a transducer trade in service when you buy new. If the tranducer provided is not the one you need, i.e. transom mount comes in box and want puck, they will send you the right one for free and you send the other one back to them. Plus Humminbird has 360. A fantastic upgrade and my next purchase. The new Helix are a good choice.

A good mapping chip, traditional sonar, and side imaging good enough to detect rock sizes, edges, and weeds is all you need. Raymarine, garmin, lowrance, and hummingbirds all do that as long as they are installed correctly and settings properly adjusted.

I chose lowrance for two reasons... I got a huge state team discount on them for one, but more importantly, there are a billion youtube videos and bbc threads that can guide me to anything I cant figure out on my own.

Dont worry so much about the bells and whistles. You are on the water to fish... Not operate an IBM mainframe.


Dan Rice said:

Each has an advantage: the Bird wins on side imaging

This is a Ford verse Chevy verse Dodge verse Toyota debate. All I want is great mapping software great side and down imaging capability, great 2d sonar and have the ability to link two or more together to share information. Almost all of the systems are capable of this now. It kind of wish someone would come with a stripped down version of these units, with what I just said only loaded on them. I don't need my unit to tell me the weather, play music or tell me how much gas I have in my boat or how hot my engine is. Some guys like all these features (iPhone users) So Sergey if you love your IPhone get a Lowrance, If you are more of an Android user get a Hummingbird, if you prefer neither loom at Garmin and a couple others.

Doug Lowrance has their version of 360 scan as well, I have used it and it is bad ass. The plus side is you don't have to attach that ugly instrument to your trolling motor or boat.

Doug Jorgensen said:

I am a Humminbird guy. Much easier to use. You don't have to push four different tabs just to go from mapping to side imaging etc. I think both work great. As bass guys we don't really use the units as demanding as saltwater guys. Much shallower depths. Humminbird customer service beats Lowrance hands down. I had a Lowrance before I bought my Birds and the negative interaction with their customer service department made me switch. I vowed to never use Lowrance again. Humminbird also has a program called Humminbird select if you buy the bigger units that provides a special customer service number that is very easy to get ahold of a real person. Humminbird also had a a transducer trade in service when you buy new. If the tranducer provided is not the one you need, i.e. transom mount comes in box and want puck, they will send you the right one for free and you send the other one back to them. Plus Humminbird has 360. A fantastic upgrade and my next purchase. The new Helix are a good choice.

I have had both and each do some things better than the other.  Humminbird IMO has a better sidescan than lowrance.  I first owned a 898 and would drive around sammamish just scanning for hard bottom and when I bought a hds 8 I did the same thing and many places I had marked with the humminbird looked way less defined.  As far as 2d the humminbird has suitable 2d sonar, but lowrance just looks alot crisper.  I mean you can still see a drop shot fall to 60ft on each one, but the lowrance just looks cleaner to me.  Both now have heading sensor GPS pucks and the ability to link together like Ron said which is essential if you use side imaging to mark waypoints while idling.  With all of that said I run 1198 and 1158 humminbirds on my boat now and have been happy with the way they perform.  Not sure if lowrance has them but humminbird has preset quick page buttons which I absolutely love.  I did alot of research before I went back to humminbird and one thing is for sure all brands will underperform unless they are installed correctly.   

RSS

Blog Posts

Old Farts Tournament on Potholes

Posted by Tom Melowitz on September 7, 2019 at 2:45pm

New Group Added!

Posted by Eric Urstad on April 3, 2019 at 7:38pm

© 2024   Created by Jordan Doucet.   Powered by

Badges  |  Report an Issue  |  Terms of Service