Lowrance mark 5

[crappiefarmer]

Well my old X97 crapped out before I needed it to. Don't have the money in the budget for an SI unit yet so I am looking for something about as good as the old 97 was. Was wondering about this unit and if there are opinions on it. I see there is a DI version of it too but looks like bad reviews on it though and I don't think gray scale would work as good on DI. Also where is a site that sells electronics cheaper traditionally? Any thoughts or opinions would be much appreciated.CF

[gabowman]

$149.30 and free shipping May be cheaper somewhere else?!?

Amazon.com: Lowrance Mark-5x 5-Inch Waterproof Fishfinder: GPS & Navigation

[jimp]

I just recently installed a mark 5 pro on the front of my boat, and have been on the water one time with it so far with about 4 hrs of play time. I plan on going again tomorrow for some more "play time" with it. I like the Mark pro 5, the 5" screen is much larger than the x37 and cuda 300 I am accustomed to. The mark 5 screen is approximately 1 1/2 times larger than the two models I listed above which are identical sizes. Imagine 1 1/2 packs of king size smokes as the size of the Mark 5 screen vs one pack for the other 2 models listed.

It has several options such as keel depth offset, you can hook a water wheel up for speed monitoring if desired, it has an old school flasher on it, and you have a couple different screen options as well on mine due to the 83/200 beams on the pro version as well as split screen. The only thing I don't like about it is the "fish symbols" on the larger screen are actually a bit harder to see as the fish symbols are not as dark in color as on my older ones and seem a bit smaller. I have yet to get a FF tuned well enough to be able to show the arches rather than using the fish symbols.

On my old FF, any structure on the bottom was just a "dark clump of something" with fish symbols around it indicating structure and fish holding on the structure. On the mark 5, you can see some definition/detail of the structure, but so far I haven't gotten it tuned/adjusted to show the fish like the old ones but maybe it won't ever. I am very accustomed to the olds one as I've had the x37 since 04 and the cuda 300 for 18mos and they show the same/identical picture of the structure as I pass over it with one xducer on the TM and one on the transom.

I think I will like the 5pro after some more play time, but the jury is still out. The price at the link above is a good price, it may get a bit better this time of year and then again, it may not. you probably can't go wrong at the price in the link.