Garmin fish finders?

[croixflats]

Looking into buying a new fish finder. Ive had a Lowrance and was not happy. Hummingbird is owned by Johnson Outdoors witch owns Minnkota not happy with them.

After reading lots of negative on those above(lots of possitives to), and my philosophy of not buying from a company that stung me I go some place else I chose to give Garmin a shot.

The 530s Garmin looks like a nice unit. Has features the other companies dont offer. I like the satilite weather feature offerd

Has anyone had experiance with this model or Garmin in general.

Profishingsupply here I come

[Bobb-o]

croix, will you shoot me an email i have a couple of questions for ya. dropshot@[YouNeedAuthorization]

[croixflats]

Email sent

[Ed Carlson]

In a word....SWEET!!!!

The new Garmin marine units are incredible. Accurate GPS, reliable sonar, very user friendly, takes all Lakemaster mapping plus the G2 Vision maps...and the G2 Vision chips are ultra sweet.

What I see is Garmin is the future of inland sonar/gps.

We installed the new 5212 touch screen on my fishing partners rig, live XM weather, touch screen, 3-D mapping above and below the water, camera hook-up for underwater cameras live on the display....It's the Kewlest thing I have ever seen on a boat! And the easiest sonar/gps I have seen to run...nothing is complicated about the system at all. The display is ultra clear HD quality in bright sunlight...amazing stuff.

Way Beyond Sweet!

[wishing for walleyes]

I have owned a few garmins and still have 2 gpsmap 188c units.Only problem i have ever had was a transducer getting weak after about 5 years of use.The gps is very accurate and puts me on my spots every time.The only downfall on my units is they are not real fast at updating the sonar.The new models now have fast update.I have never owned a lowrance because i have had good luck with garmin.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Garmins are great. Top quality, but you'll need a fat wallet to buy one with lots of features.

[croixflats]

Thanks for the input tonight I'm ordering the 530s.

Nothing like getting a new toy, woops I mean a working utensil that will help me be safe on the water. Now the wait.

[Wish-I-Were-Fishn]

Thanks for the input tonight I'm ordering the 530s.

Nothing like getting a new toy, woops I mean a working utensil that will help me be safe on the water. Now the wait.

I looked this up on their HSOforum. Looks great! Does it take Lakemaster & Navionics chips?

[croixflats]

Takes the lake master chip thankfuly according to profishingsupply.com. Garmin has its own lakemaster chip product so it wont be using the Lowrance chip.

[PerchJerker]

Hey croix, sorry for not posting back here sooner. Thanks for the order.

I haven't used these newer Garmin combo units myself ....... but from everything I've seen and heard they are really great units. The displays are awesome on them, no quesiton about that. And Garmin makes great GPS units and has a good reputation with all their products, so I think it's a good choice.

For years I've said that Garmin probably has the best GPS units but Lowrance sells more fishing GPS because they take lakemaster and navionics chips. And Garmin was focusing most of their emphasis and advertising in areas like automotive and aviation, not in fishing, so you really didn't hear much about them in the fishing market.

But ...... starting in 2008 Garmin came out with their own LakeMaster map chips for Garmin units, just like Lowrance has LakeMaster map chips for Lowrance units. You still can't use a Nav chip in a Garmin but Garmin has some other mapping options too. So now that Garmin can use LakeMaster I think you're going to see a lot more Garmins out there.

You can check them out at the links below. Both of these models are fishfinder / gps combos that take the Garmin LakeMater chips.

Garmin 530s

Garmin 430s / 430sx