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Best fish finder with gps $500 or less?


sstout

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I'm looking for opinions of the best fish finder for $500 or less. It'll be replacing a 12 year old lowrance unit, so I'm sure it won't take much to be better. I primarily troll, and would love a built in gps. A couple I've looked into are the Garmin echomap 53cv, lowrance hook 5 and 7, lowrance elite 5ti, or the humminbird helix 5. Any opinions or other suggestions are much appreciated! Thanks

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i have lowrance, the elite 5 chirp and elite 5 hdi both work very well had no problems . the lowrance hook was new last year , have seen post on L O U that the hooks have problems with them and the customer service is poor to none . my buddy up graded to the garmin echomap 73 sv and its better than the lowrance any day but he spent more than 500 $ on it 

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Your best bet for a very good fish finder in that range will be a second hand Furuno (even a 582). It far outstrips just about anything new on the market.

Edited by rolmops
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 years later...

Ice Helix 5 Sonar/GPS unit works great for me in the winter and I have a separate mount, power cord and transducer in the boat. I just move the display from one to the other. The units is very powerful, 4000 watts peak and is good for 1500 feet. Way more than I need. I am just starting to use the way points and GPS. Flasher is great, sonar works good for jigging has a timer, clock, battery status all built in. I don't think I will ever use all the capability the unit has. Lots of choices out there. Let us know what you pick.

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It's funny looking back at this. I posted this topic 3 years ago. I ended up choosing a garmin echomap 53cv. After three seasons it's been awesome. The graph has great detail and the gps with mapping is great. I've been 8 miles offshore in lake O on a calm day and to have the GPS has made it really easy. I'm definitely a garmin fan now. 

20190919_161640.jpg

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I just picked up the Garmin Striker 5 for my son for xmas, a friend has it and the unit works like a charm. I have a Helix5 that I have been using and am not impressed one bit, it seems hard to program and I have called hummingbird several times. The tech support seems to always rush me off the call. The problem I believe is me not understanding the term used as to what setting I would need, In the past I've had many flashers, paper graphs and for years I used an Eagle ID6300 , it was totally automatic, just power up and leave it alone. These newer units with all the different setting I find extremely confusing, and not sure what settings I need to have set. I'll start the year using the Helix5 again and try to see if I can get it right, if not i'll pick up the Garmin Striker 7 for myself.

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