I have a 997 SI at the console and a Lowrance 537 up front. I would not give up the 997 for anything. I will tell you how I based my decision, I wanted to start fishing off shore structure. The SI unit lets you cover water fast to find ledges, brush bridges, underwater creeks, ect faster then a 2D unit. Do not let the phrase cover water fast fool you into thinking that the unit works at high speeds. Anything over 5 MPH is useless. You can however look at about 100 yrds of bottom at a time, 160 feet to the left and 160 feet to the right. That is where the true speed comes into play. Think of trying to find a brush piles with a 6 foot cone under the bottom of your boat verse 100 yrds on a new lake. No brush pile is “ secret ” with Side Imaging.

The 2D view with the Humminbird is not as clear as the lowrance, but I no longer use the 2D view. I mark my way points with the Humminbird and then transfer them to the Lowrance.

If you are going to be fishing ledges and off shore stuff then I would say to take a good look at it.

I have a pic of the sunken bridge at Cedar Creek that I can email you so you can see a real SI scan pic looks like. You will see that it is just as advertised.