Humminbird vs. Lowrance...The way I see it.
I have been a Humminbird man for as long as I have been fishing. I always had the lower end models, but they done just what they said they would do and just what I have needed them to do. 3-4 years ago, I splurged and bought a HB 798 and I have been 100% satisfied with it. Last month I decided to give Lowrance a try so I purchased an Elite 7 HDI (Hybrid Down Imaging). The unit came with a 83/200 kz transducer that was not capable of using the Down Imaging (which I was unaware of at the time). I wasn't very satisfied with the it marked, or should I say, it didn't mark the fish. I had my HB 798 on the console and was comparing the 2 units. I noticed the maps on the charts didn't update very fast either but I was more concerned about the sonar and down imaging to pay that much attention. A fishing friend at Eufaula helped me figure out that I didn't have the correct transducer for the DI, and I just figured that I must have got a defective unit, so I called Lowrance. I wasn't real happy with the Customer Service, maybe I should say the Tech Support. Once they found out that I didn't have the latest update on my 3 day old unit, they pretty much slammed the door in my face. So, I packaged the 3 day old unit up and sent it back and ordered another Elite 7 HDI with the proper transducer. The very first thing I did was put the latest software update on it. I went and used it for 9 days and the DI on any unit don't do you too much good at Crescent Lake, but I compared it with the DI on my HB 798...HB looked better to me..I compared the regular sonar to the sonar on the HB won out again. But the Charts (GPS) really disappointed me. When I would zoom in or zoom out, it would take up to 30 seconds to update and display anything on the screen....HB took less than 5 seconds, usually 2-3 seconds....I will say the picture on the Elite 7 is awesome, tho. The higher end HDS units may be different, or faster, I'm not sure......So today I call Tech Support at Lowrance and told them the situation with it taking so long for the chart to update. His first question was, "Have you updated your unit with the latest software version?"..."Yes sir" I told him hoping that no doors would be slammed in my face again. His answer was this..."The processor in the Elite 7 is too slow to process the data any faster.".....Wow, I never saw that advertised when I was looking for a new unit. Makes me wonder how slow the Elite 5 is.. I asked "So, it is what it is and it will always be slow?"...He said "Yes, I'm sorry". With that we told each other to have a nice afternoon and ended the call. Take a guess what my next call was!!!
Side note: I did purchase an Eagle Intellimap GPS unit only, made by Lowrance, about 6-7 years ago. I never had any problem with it updating. To the best of my memory, it only took a few seconds.
