Side imaging or down imaging?

[Embrey]

the side probably gets the nod here, but they are both very useful...

[bigrod]

Here is my opinion for what it's worth. I would if I was in your shoes and had to decide which one to go with, hands down it is the bird. I say this only because if you have a problem they will stand behind their product and lowrance will not! If you don't believe me all I will say right now is do your research and you will see. I have Lowrance in my boat now but when I upgrade it will be with Birds unless Lowrance gets their **** together.One other thing is if you don't know how to read them they will not help you catch any more fish than now.

[smuckey41]

i would ask and see but i have the 1197si and it didnt have down imagine and i had to do is get a sd card and down load the new version for the unit and i was able to get the down imagine. so i bet that you can register the unit and download the new version to get down image like i did. the 800 series and the new 1197 units are just all ready updated with both side imagine and down scan so im pretty sure you can do it with the 788.