GPS Fishfinder

[Saint Paul Dan]

I've been thinking about buying a new fishfinder to replace my basic garmin unit. I currently own the most basic unit and its probably about 20 years old, so just about anything will be an upgrade. Anyways, I've narrowed my selection down to 2 Lowrance units and thought I would ask for your opinions since I haven't made a post for many moons.

I'm trying to decide between the Lowrance HDS 5 and the (new) Elite 5. The main difference is the Elite 5 is about $60 cheaper and doesn't have HD capabilities. Any opinions?

[Superduty]

I think either unit will work great as a sonar and gps. The main question would be if you want to upgrade to structure scan someday. You can only do that with the HDS units. For $60, I would keep my options open.

[PerchJerker]

In addition to the StructureScan that Superduty mentioned, the HDS5 can be networked and ethernet-connected with other HDS units --- the Elite-5 has no networking capabilities. That's only an issue if you would ever want to network units to share info like gps position and waypoints, sonar, etc.

[Deitz Dittrich]

I too give the nod to the HDS5..