Vexilar FLX-28 vs. Marcum LX-7

[Esox_Magnum]

Not a fair comparison honetsly, its apples to oranges. To be fair you need to compaire mechanical flashers so the 28 and LX-5 are apples to apples, the 7 is all digital and in a different class

[Eric_Kruger]

Im going to chime in, Ive owned both....My Lx7 was plagued with problems from the day I bought it. Did it work, yeah....most of the time. I had it completely lock up on me on a 3 day trip to LOW....to the point it wouldnt turn on for hours. It also stopped marking bottom and I was told to buy a new ducer...I did. same thing. Brought it in and they had to re program the whole unit. And re embursed me the cost of the ducer. IT also always had a jumping bottom. regardless of the update. With all that said. I liked it, and if they ever figure out all the garbage with them I will buy another. I know my unit was one in thousands, an some units worked perfect out of the box, unfortunately after two marcums that crapped out and made me buy other brands, i will stick with the reliability of the vex brand.

[Jigging Joe]

I bought a lx-7 last year replacing a hummingbird ice 45. The things I don't like about the 7 is the weight and general size of the unit. I hated the handle so I made my own. The things I like are the zoom and the target separation, also the very fine lines.

This year I added the vexilar 28 so that when my kids go I can still have a flasher to use. I used it for the first time this weekend on Red in 13 of water. In normal mode, I couldn't set my gain low enough, my jig was bright red and large. So I switched to low power mode which uses 10% more power and you cant see what depth you're in on the display, there I could set my gain so that my jig showed as a green but at times it would turn bright red without even jigging it?? In normal mode it would interfere with my Marcum, in low power mode it did not interfer. The vexilar seemed to work ok but so far I didn't see anything special, not much diferent than some of the other vexilars as far as performance.

After one weekend I'm still on the fence, I think the lx-7 is a way better unit performance wise, much more crisp and better detail. The vexilar will be much better for hole hopping. I need to use them both in deep water to see if they will interfere with each other. That's the biggest reason I bought dif. brands, so that I could use two units next to each other without interfering....

[wishing for walleyes]

See I wasn't a fan of the 28 in shallow water actually. Maybe I just need to work with changing up the settings a bit. What settings were you using in shallow? [/quote

Take it out of auto mode and use it in the 10 foot mode. Also use the low power mode. Then use the weed mode to adjust how you want to see your lure.

[d beyer]

Well I noticed while using my lx-7 today that the lines between the numbers on graph mode flash off than on again every 2 minutes or so. Not sure if that is normal but I am going to try to get ahold of the guys at Marcum today.

[Blackhawkxp]

I think the biggest advantage I have noticed when fishing along side of my sons LX5 or buddy's Vex is that the LX6/LX7 is pretty much ready to go as soon as you turn the unit on. You are ready to fish no matter the depth. You dont have to adjust much in the way of the gain or zoom windows like on a LX5 or other mechanical. Not that it is a big deal but when you are fishing suspended fish you don't need to constantly move the zoom windows or adjust the gain when hole hoping to find bottom. All units are better than not having one. I bought the Marcum LX7 because I am the type of guy that would regret buying a lower end model and then wish I would have spent the extra money because it has to be better since it cost's more! I think you will be happy with your unit as they looked pretty nice on the shelf in FF.

[NUGE]

And the new FLX-28 is brushless!

Keep your 28, you made the right decision, I will get gripe for this but Vexialr is a more reliable unit than the Marcum. Have seen a few issues with Marcums compared to almost nill with vexialrs(only worn out brushes).

[d beyer]

Called Marcum today and they answered on first ring. I had emailed them this weekend about the charger problem and I wanted to ask them about the lines flashing. I told him about it and he said it wasn't normal and I should send it in. He said if it doesn't bother me to much to wait till spring so I could keep using it. I asked about the charger issue. He asked my name and when I told him he said "I just emailed you a couple minutes ago." Gave him my name etc and he said we are going to ship you a new charger. I even told him that I got it to work by unplugging it for a few minutes than plugging it back in and it turned green. He spent quite a few minutes on the phone as I had some questions about installing the 7 on my boat this spring.