04-14-2007, 09:22 PM
Again, the Lowrance units are nice, but they are overpriced in my opinion (and yes, the Lowrance units are on sale just like the Bottomline, so that is hogwash to think that just because something is on sale its not good!) Plus I've always been a fan of Humminbirds. Goes back to the late 1970 when the "super 60's" first came out. Never had a problem with them and really been impressed with their reliability. As for your friend's luck it may have been the electronics, but more likely something wrong with the wiring in the boat! Lund is a great boat but the last few years their quality control sucks! I know of two Lunds that have leaked right from factory and both were under warranty. But the tear down and fix of the leaks took almost a month (time when my friends both wanted to be fishing). The other friend had a problem with his Lund wiring. Live well and on-board charger were constantly giving him fits. The moral of the story is that I'm willing to roll the bones ($200) on the Bottomline. I looked at one today (Saturday) on a friend's boat and was very impressed. I did almost a sidebyside comparison of a Humminbird 565 with 640 vertical pixels to a Bottomline with 320 vertical. I could not literally see a difference and then I could barely see the Humminbird's screen which was less than 1/2 the size of the BL. I'm now convinced that anything above about 320 vertical pixels is all you really need to see things <2.5 inches long and the fish I'm after are much larger than than that. I'm a big screen person rather than high resolution. Literally the Humminbird 565 was nice but the screen was the size of a 3"x3" post-it note. I'll report back on the BL after I get it figured out and proof test it for a few months. Thanks all for everyone's input.
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