Lakemaster vs. Navionics

[PFUNK]

I just got my ifinder H2O and now i'm trying to decide which chip i want to make the unit complete. What are your opinions on the accuracy of each of these chips? Pros and cons of each? Thanks guys.

[Craig Plummer]

Im by no means an expert but what I would do it look on both websites and see which lakes there chips cover and then chose your chip depending on which one covers more of the lakes that you fish.

[eyebjim]

I'm not sure if Navionics has fixed it yet but on the chips I have had in the past you could only zoom to about 0.5 MI and then it would zoom further but there was no map. It was really irritating. My lakemaster chip zooms all the way in as far as the H20c will Zoom. Maybe someone can chime in to say wheater or not that has been corrected on the new navionics chip or not.

[L_Cappo]

both my lakemaster chips can zoom to 0.02mile.

[GRAND DAD]

I am no expert either but just last weekend I got to compare, I have the lakemaster chip and my friend had the Navionices and we both hands down thought the lakemaster chip was way better in detail and every thing.

[Dale Rueber]

I was in a Sportsmans Warehouse and the salesman did a side-by-side comparison for me. For the area I was looking at (Mississippi, St Croix and Metro lakes), both chips were great. The Navionics seemed to have more detail for the Mississippi but I found that the Lakemaster contour lines lines were easier to see. For the Metro area lakes and the St Croix the chips seemed to be very comparable. I went with the Lakemaster because I'm not always near my GPS screen and I thought it would be easier to pick up the contours. This was on a Lowrance 522C, how these two compare on a H2O I have no idea. Check with one of the resellers and maybe they will do a side-by-side comparison.

[blueroof]

I've got both the 07 MN Lakemaster and the Navionics 08, got the Navionics about a month ago. For the Croix, and other lakes I've been ice fishing, I prefer the Navionics. Since picking up the Navionics chip, I haven't used the Lakemaster aside from trying to do comparisons. Kinda hard to do with one GPS.

I'm sure when I fish a lake that is represented in HD on the Lakemaster that isn't on the other, I will use it.

The Navionics has far better detail for the Croix north of the 94 bridge. Big Marine and White Bear also seem to have better detail. Yes, you cannot zoom in as far, but the detail of the map is better IMO. Either chip is better than no map chip, 100% certain of that.

LB

[nitroant]

I have the 2006 Lakemaster and I know on that chip the whole Gull Lake Chain is on there, my friend has the Nav chip and only Gull is on there, so for me when I buy a new chip it will come down to which chip has more of the lakes I fish. When we were on Gull and had both gps units going with the different chips I didn't see that much difference, but we were using handhelds- there may be a bigger difference on the dash mount units with the bigger screens.

[hoggs222]

Like Craig Plummer said, I would check out the sites and compare the list of lakes. Make sure you check out which lakes are detailed (1', 3', 5' contours) Both have data on many lakes, but some are sort of worthless (no structure maps). This usually happens on the smaller lakes. Lakemaster is going to be more concentrated in MN while Navionics is going to be more of a 5 state area.

[BoxMN]

We have a '04 Navionics and an '07 Lakemaster, so can't really do the comparison with those. But we will be getting an '08 Navioincs as well, mainly for Rainy Lake, but it will work great for other lakes too, and we have h2O and 642c, so we can compare easily then.

Can anybody tell us if the newer Navioincs is "plug and play" like the Lakemaster, or do you still have to go to Map Data and select the area map you want to use like old Navioincs chips? I am guessing that was updated, but would be nice to know.

I do know first hand that both companies get back to their customers right away, so good support with either.

[blueroof]

Box, you still need to go to map data and select the area you want to view on the 08 Navionics.

Another point is that the Navionics loads information much slower than the Lakemaster. On some units, if you're zoomed in on the Navionics and traveling across the lake quickly, you can outrun the data and get a blank screen... Not too big of issue, generally wouldn't be using the gps zoomed in at that level when traveling any distance quickly.

LB

[ec30_06]

I just picked up navionics 08 chip. I couldn't decide between that one or the lakemaster. It turned out that the navionics had a lot more of the lakes that I fish on it. It also has lake of the woods, which the lake master does not. I used it on mille lacs last weekend and it was right on in the places I checked depths.

[L_Cappo]

lakemaster has its own chip just for lotwi think it was worth the money.

[PFUNK]

Ok so I looked at both of their websites. Lakemaster seems to have roughly 750 or so lakes with counter and 79 are high def ones. Navionics on the other hand has WAY more lakes in minnesota on their chart, so many that I didn't even want to count but I'm guessing well over 2000. I didn't see a lot of the smaller lakes that I fish on the lakemaster chip which kinda worries me. But, like someone said you cant zoom in as far either on the navionics chip. This is also a problem as a nice hump or hole somewhere may only be 15 feet long. If I can't zoom in far enough... how do I know I'm on the spot precisely? Thats why i buy the unit after all isn't it?... so i don't have to drill 100 holes until i find the honey hole. So, although navionics has all of the lakes i'll ever want to fish, they may not be able to accurately put me on the spots. I'm still having a tough time deciding which one to get. as you know they arent cheap.

[BoxMN]

 Originally Posted By: blueroof

Box, you still need to go to map data and select the area you want to view on the 08 Navionics.

Another point is that the Navionics loads information much slower than the Lakemaster. On some units, if you're zoomed in on the Navionics and traveling across the lake quickly, you can outrun the data and get a blank screen... Not too big of issue, generally wouldn't be using the gps zoomed in at that level when traveling any distance quickly.

LB

Thanks LB, can you tell us if the map data names make sense, or is it still like "NA10_b.dat" ? I hate that, cause you have to know what you are looking for, why not call them "Metro" or "NW_MN" or something a bit easier to follow. Maybe they do now, I hope so.

Also, does Navionics '08 have roads and highways in it? Lakemaster does and than is real nice, no more swapping cards for driving or hunting.

For those of you wondering what I am talking about, the Lakemaster is much more "user friendly" and plug and play than the Navionics.

As far as zooming, I think both can zoom just fine, and enough. It took a download update of my GPS's (from Lowrance, easy to do) and then you could zoom in farther on Nav chip, about the same as Lakemaster.

Thanks!

[blueroof]

 Originally Posted By: PFUNK

This is also a problem as a nice hump or hole somewhere may only be 15 feet long. If I can't zoom in far enough... how do I know I'm on the spot precisely?

PFUNK- the navionics will easily put you on a 15ft hump or hole, no problem.

 Originally Posted By: BoxMN

can you tell us if the map data names make sense, or is it still like "NA10_b.dat" ?

Also, does Navionics '08 have roads and highways in it?

Box - it has names like North Minnesota, North East Minn, South East Minnesota, North East Michigan...

Some roads, but definitely not the quality of the Lakemaster chip in that regard.

LB

[Dooley87]

i own both chips and i by far prefer my navionics chip over my lakemaster chip. navionics trys to personaly go out and HD map lakes so they are very accurate, our lake place was HD maped by navionics and i don't even use a depthfinder most of the time it is that accurate. if navionics hasn't HD mapped your lake they will have the same maps that lakemaster uses because they both get there maps from the same source like the dnr etc..

i use my lakemaster map though for roads and navigation. lakemaster has almost every major road and highway, even backroads and dirt roads but some of the roads haven't been updated in a while.

you can go on to navionics web site and they will have a list of all HD maped lakes and if any of the lakes you do fish or plan to fish are HD maped i would urge you to go with navionics.

this is the link for the 2008 hot maps chip:

http://www.navionics.com/HMPremium08Catalog.asp

you should be able to click on your region and see a list of all maped lakes, ones that are brown have been HD mapped and ones that have this * are availible in the 2007 chip.

[Dooley87]

also... i have the h20c and i have the same zooming capabilities with the lake master as i do with the navionics, both will zoom into 1/8th of a mile, plenty zooming for me, and with the hd lakes they will have 5 - 10 foot depth incriments untill you zoom in past a quarter mile, then they become one foot incriments, really helps illuminate spots on spots. lake master is always 5 to ten foot depth incriments

[NAMASafetyDirector]

I have no experience with Navionics however I do have the 08' chip just for LOW from Lakemaster and absolutly love it. I have no complaints whatsoever. The detail is great and the zoom works flawlessly down to .5 of a mile which is nice for getting in position on some of the smaller reef's I fish on the north end of the lake and Ontario.

[PFUNK]

I thought that lakemaster had 79 pro maps that have either 3' ot 1' counter lines, not only 5 and 10 feet???

[Dooley87]

the lakes i fish must not be the pro maps cause all the lakemaster lakes i haved looked at all have 5 to 10 foot incriments. but they are almost all HD maped by navionics

i notice everybody recomending lakemaster are refering to their LOTW chip and that was obviously personaly maped by lakemaster. well navionics HD maped lakes has the same detail that the other members refer to when talking about the LOTW lakemaster chip.

All i know is from my experience WHENEVER i am fishing i have my navionics chip in and when ever i am driving i have my lakemaster chip in, just my experiences with both chips on the lakes i fish.

[PerchJerker]

 Originally Posted By: bearbait87

the lakes i fish must not be the pro maps cause all the lakemaster lakes i haved looked at all have 5 to 10 foot incriments. but they are almost all HD maped by navionics

Huh???? I don't think LM has any maps that are 10 foot contours, I've only seen 1, 3 or 5 foot contours. Maybe you're not zooming in far enough to see the smaller contours?

I love using the map chips on High Defintion lakes, but on other lakes that are not High Definition they are no better than regular DNR maps. So better than nothing but not very accurate.

Can anyone answer how far the '08 Nav chip will zoom in? Will it zoom in closer than 1/8th of a mile?

Older Nav chips only zoomed to 1/8th of a mile. LM chips zoom to something like 2/100ths of a mile. I far prefer the zoom on the LM chips, it's much more helpful when ice fishing. Even in open water, there's a tiny spot on Tonka I cast for muskies that shows up great on LM when you zoom in but barely shows on Nav, in fact the position icon that shows where you are just about covers it up on Nav. In my mind this has always been a big strike against Nav and I keep hoping they will improve their zoom capabilities.

[tom fellegy]

i got the navionics chip back in '04. it was a very good addition to the arsenal. i turned on the unit one day last year and it would not show the map. after a few days of trouble shooting, talking to customer service, we figured out that the chip went bad. the chip was never removed from the unit from day one, no need to ever remove the chip. customer service insisted adamently that the only way a chip could go bad was if you tried to copy the chip. well i did not try to copy the chip, like i said, the first time the chip was pulled out of the unit was when i tried it in another unit. i understand that customer service gets calls like that all the time, but this was me calling and i didn't try to copy the chip. needless to say, i replaced the navionics chip with a lakemaster chip. both chips have very good detail. each one offers different lakes with different depth contours. here on lake mille lacs, they are both very good. my other unit is a x15 and only excepts the lakemaster chip. my reason for going to lakemaster was, one poor customer service rep. i am sure that if the guy would have said that the chip must have just gone bad and it is older that the 1 year warrenty and all he could offer me was the standard trade in option i would have replaced it with a navionice chip. enough of my rant.... here in minnesota, both chips work great...............tom fellegy

[NCLaker]

 Originally Posted By: BoxMN

As far as zooming, I think both can zoom just fine, and enough. It took a download update of my GPS's (from Lowrance, easy to do) and then you could zoom in farther on Nav chip, about the same as Lakemaster.

BoxMN, What specific download did update your GPS with to improve your zoom on the Navionics (link/name)? I have the Expidition C - assume it would work on it or an H2O/H2Oc. Is it easy to apply the update?

Thanks!

[BoxMN]

We have h2O but not color, and the 642c. Each unit has a specific update. Here is the site to find the update you need, or to tell if you already have latest firmware:

Lowrance update page.

You just an empty/spare chip and then just follow the directions. Good luck! Oh, BTW - we did not lose our waypoints but we did lose some other info we had saved, so you will want to backup anything important you have on it, trails, etc.