It will work without tilting provided that there is a clean line of sight to each side of the transducer. You do not have to mount your ducer on the starboard side. It is recommended due to the turbulence from the prop though. I mounted mine on the G-3 on the port side and it worked fine. The SI on a h'bird works fine at around 2 mph up to about 4 ish. below that and it gets skewed and above that it does as well.

Now as far as H'bird vs Lowrance goes....I done tolt ya all you need to know and even double underlined it. You need to listen to me. These other yahoos are just wannabes.

But I will recap....buy what you want and or can afford. You'll like either as long as it's 898 sized or above.

Wannabe...