Combo or Handheld

[Col Forbin]

I have the lowrance I-finder H2O and like it alot becuase I fish out of others boats quite a bit... for navigaition purposes it works well but a little hard to see in the bright sun, you need to have it pluged in the whole time or the batteries will go down in a days time. If I was only going to have it in my boat i would go with a combo, my next purchase will be the humminbird 797 with the side imaging....

I am looking at the 797 too. It is couple hundred dollars more than the the lowrance 520 - but if you have the extra money, I would go with that - it is pretty cool.

[Fishin_4_Fun]

I just got a 797. I've gone out a couple of times learning how to use it. I'm liking it so far. The 1st one I got though would not load the maps, so I had to send the brand new unit to humminbird for repair, and received a refurbished unit in a couple of weeks.

[18'stratos]

I just got a 797. I've gone out a couple of times learning how to use it. I'm liking it so far. The 1st one I got though would not load the maps, so I had to send the brand new unit to humminbird for repair, and received a refurbished unit in a couple of weeks.

Wow! That *****, Brand New for Re-furbished. As for the hand held or combo. Save and get the Combo. When you need it in the boat it will be in the car, and when you need it in the car it will be in the boat. Depends on the money you want to spend I guess......

[Newlight]

If you want a combo unit, the previous poster's suggestion about the 600c from Lowrance is the way I went. One drawback to the unit is the mount. You need to spend a little extra to get a Ram Mount for the boat and another suction mount for the car( both with ball connectors, otherwise you'll be using a screwdriver to change the connectors on the back to switch from car to boat) so that you can use the unit for what it was intended. The mount they send is not good enough to use in the boat ( I wouldn't use a suction mount, it might very well wind up in the drink). Another disadvantage is the lack of an onboard battery. It's strictly a vehicle type GPS as opposed to the handhelds. Also this has a large 5" color touchscreen and has a very large heatsink attached to the rear - great for high heat conditions in a car or on a boat. This however, make's the unit much heavier than most GPS's. Also the screen is supposed to be one of the brightest in the industry, so it's readable in most lighting conditions (bright sunlight). Now for the caveat, its loaded with Fishing HotSpots Elite (3000 lakes), NauticPath ( entire coastline along with Hawaii and Puerto Rico ) and the latest Navteq for on the road use. No card slots might translate for some as a disadvantage, but this unit is IPX7 waterproof. It also has a USB connection for updates when they become available along with 30 gigs of storage. It has an mp3 player or you can store pictures on it as well.The power cord is a 12v plug that also has a small speaker to hear voice commands for turns on the road or music, but I use the FM modulator to play it through the radio in the boat and car. Another caveat, I bought it for $339 at Tiger GPS on cyber-Monday before Christmas. It's around $349 now the last time I looked. Hope that helped.