FL-20 vs LX-5 FACTS ONLY

[CNY-Kyle]

Like Huey said: We are all benifiting by the new competition... Its a win win for us as the end users of these products, competition results in better technology & lower prices. I think we will see good things from both vendors.

[CSP88]

 Originally Posted By: CNY-Kyle

What I was getting at is that when analyzing the information to make a judgement on buying/Choosing a new unit, i wouldnt base my judgement on brand, but more so on the technology and what people are saying about the units im considering.

Agreed, several factors I take into consideration are: technology, upgradability, flexability, durability, dependability and lastly, the brand name does hold value in my book. If a company has a reputation of making a great product for many years it helps with the buyer's confidence in they'll get a product that will provide them years of trouble free service.

[CSP88]

 Originally Posted By: fishorgolf

Some people just can not stand the fact that the $500.00 they just paid for a flasher may not be the best available for that money.

Again, that is opinion based. Whose to say that his/her $500 unit is NOT the best available? In their opinion it may be the best money can buy. One guys top pick may/may not be the next guys top pick.

Chad

[FISHINGURU]

well i have a vex and my buddy has a marcum...we went up to upper red lake for a few days...his was fully charged and ready to go...mine didn't get a full charge cause i was fishing late the night before we left. we both have them running the whole time between 6am and 2am...the night before we left he had to keep turning his off to save power for the morning bite...i kept mine going the whole time...we left his was dead...mine could of still been used atleast the rest of that day.

i have an fl-18 i'm not exactly sure what kind of marcum he has.

2 friends on that trip liked my fl-18 so much they went and bought fl-20's.

now the fl-20 added the feature of the zoom reading the bottom 12 ft instead of just the bottom 6 which is cool for suspended crappies that like to hover 8-12ft off bottom alot.

also the new night mode dims the lights way down so it doesn't hurt your eyes night fishing or in a dim lit shack....also if use night mode it cuts the power use way down so your battery even lasts longer then the fl-18.

the flat screen is a nice added option.

also the new fl-20 you can just turn the on botton on without hooking up the prongs on the battery manually and the charging posts are right up front for easier charging.

if you bring along a deep cell battery or a generator on your trips some of them things don't matter but i depend on battery life when i take my trips. i'm excited to upgrade to the fl-20 i like them alot.

i bought my fl-18 when they first came out and haven't had 1 problem with it..original battery...she's been banged around..left outside in the freezing cold..ect...i get layed off in the winter so i use my flasher dang near everyday...i'd never even go fishing without it.

i'll stick with my vex's....they never gave me a reason to want to switch...my buddies marcum is nice too and does the trick...i'd own either one. i'll read and catch fish with either one and thats the point of using one....arguing about which is better is a waste of time.

[tillerdude]

My goodness there's a lot of good info here, biased and unbiased. I think I have tried just about every unit on the market. However, this surely does NOT make me an expert by any means.

What intrigues me most is the power debate. I hear Marcum has more power which makes it better and Vexilar has lower power which makes it better and so on. Well, I was just surfing on another site that was talking about Lowrance and now they have this new Broadband Box which I believe they say makes the sonar transmit low power for all around better performance. It's interesting to see a major talk about low transmit power... I wonder how long before Marcum gets one of these boxes??

Ok, back to the original question. I used the FL-18 for the past 3 years with zero problems and was intrigued by the hype of the LX-5 and bought one last year. I was a little disapponted in that it did not show me as much as my FL-18. Sure the lines may have looked a little more crisp, but I was not seeing as much detail(information) as my 18. I really noticed it more in the zoom mode under 20 feet. However, it may have because I was using a 12 degree transducer on the 18 and on the 5 I was using the 8 degree of the dual beam. I also had 2 transducers go bad, but the Marcum customer service was good in that they took care of me and replaced my ducers in no time. Well, I sold my Marcum and stepped up to the FL-20 and haven't looked back. I like the flat screen display and I still believe both the 18 and 20 have a higher resolution than the Marcums do. I did seem to notice a little better picture (crisper) on the FL-20 on the 9 degree over the FL-18 12 degree.

Did I catch fish using both? sure did! Again, I think it boils down to personal preference and they both make a decent unit. My preference is Vexilar.

I think it might be time to maybe buy another new Lowrance now too!

[blueroof]

 Originally Posted By: tillerdude

What intrigues me most is the power debate. I hear Marcum has more power which makes it better and Vexilar has lower power which makes it better and so on. Well, I was just surfing on another site that was talking about Lowrance and now they have this new Broadband Box which I believe they say makes the sonar transmit low power for all around better performance. It's interesting to see a major talk about low transmit power... I wonder how long before Marcum gets one of these boxes??

Tiller, interesting point. The thing about the Lowrance broadband and it's reliance on low power is they are referring to performance in a non static fishing environment. The low power is superior in conjunction with the boxes DSP (digital signal processing) in cases where your boat is going fast or you have big waves, turbulence and chop. The low power doesn't throw far flung echoes that cause unpredictable errors on the readout in these situations. The DSP enhances the low power, basically a digital amplifier with algorithms to get the predictable good from the display while dumping the limited (by the low power) predictable bad.

Digital technology could work wonders in a static ice fishing situation, you could dump weeds and have refined bottom feedback showing exactly what the bottom (from digitally predetermined presets) is comprised of. You could probably level out breaks to get rid of dead zones and other fancy stuff like that too.

More power while ice fishing doesn't have the issues that arise from sonar on moving boats going through waves and current. High power could cause issues in some situations on the ice, but for the most part more power is good - especially without the benefits of DSP. I don't think it would be worth it to make a flasher with DSP, might as well run a graph with the Broadband Box on the ice

This stuff is sweet! I've been planning on rigging a Bird SI unit, might need to reconsider, or at least keep a Lowrance with one of these boxes too. LB