GPS Chartplotter Questions

[MuskyHunter]

I am looking into a GPS unit for my boat, not a sounder unit (GPS and Fishfinder combo) but a dedicated GPS with inland lake maps as well as road maps.

What I would like to do is to use it in my truck when driving using a windshield mount, then move it to my boat driver console. Once to my fishing location, I would like to move the unit up front as a guide when using the electric trolling motor. I prefer units that are easily upgradeable such as with SD cards, and internal hard drive units are not very appealing.

I have two dedicated fish locators on the boat and would like to keep fish locating operations to dedicated locators, and GPS functions to a GPS unit.
My eyes are on the Garmin GPSMAP 378 and the Lowrance Globalmap 5300C. Both have internal antennas but I am not sure with the various lake maps available if they are all active maps.

The Garmin is appealing due to satellite weather capability to better understand fishing opportunities during long outings as well as severe weather. But Garmin tends to be very proprietary with their mapping and technology. The Lowrance is appealing because of it's lower price and more map vendor options, but previous Lowrance units had a lot of trouble with their internal antennas. With the price of the Lowrance, I could afford to get two units and keep one unit up front of the boat and one on the driver console.

Then there are map vendors such as Lake Master, Navionics, Fishing Hot Spots, Garmin's Inland lakes, etc. Very difficult to determine how many of these maps are active maps. For example, Lake Master maps for the Garmin will allow you to track a series of waypoints for the lake, then you transfer that data to your Lake Master map on your PC to view the data. You can not use Lake Master for navigation. Lake Master maps for Lowrance are active maps and can be used for navigation.

Lastly, I would like the ability to annotate maps with info like boat landings, key structure, etc. I would appreciate other anglers experience and/or opinions of GPS lake map technology. I am not ready to let go of a grand without knowing what I am going to get into and what the limitations will be.

[Shane06fl]

You know neither system is perfect and won't do everything you want. I like Garmin products better but I have used very little Lowrance products. My suggestion would be to pick two software programs that work best for you and see which unit will work best with your chosen software. Sometimes the software is more important than the unit even though software is useless without the proper unit. Keep in mind that new mapping programs are coming out all the time so what ever one that is easiest to upgrade programs and less costly to upgrade would be my biggest influence.