new electronics-choices

[geesea]

I am shopping for new electronics for my 23 seacraft savage inboard. I need a gps/chartplotter 12 inch and a seperate dedicated sounder. I was leaning towards the furuno 585 sounder, but unsure about the gps/plotter. Simrad, raymarine or garmin?
My fishing consists of mostly inshore wreck fishing, and occassional trips to the deep for shark.

[Old'sCool]

I have the Furuno 585 w/Airmar tilted element thru hull. I would buy it again. It's awesome! I also have the Garmin 2210 10" but have been eyeing the 4212.

[BigLew]

For what it is worth, only Garmin uses calibrated vector based graphics and all the others (to my knowledge) use rastor based graphics. This allows them to zoom in closer which translates to more precision in the image when navigating in very tight quarters. This is particularly important in low/no visibility situations.

[floorboy]

Garmin has some REAL nice stuff out there.

[pair of jacks]

I also have Furuno 585 with airmar thru-hull It's a really nice sounder

[castalot]

i really enjoy my raymarine c80

[lobo1]

My current boat has Raymarine stuff on it and I only have one season on it so I cant really comment on it. Most all my other boats I owned in the last 10 yrs have all had Garmin GPS on them and all were great. There were a few years where the anti-glare material was poor but they would send me a new unit every year till I sold the boat.
If nothing else sells you on Garmin - the customer service should. My experience says that they are an outstanding customer service company - from telephone calls to replacements etc. I really like doing business with companies that dont forget the customer after the sale.

I have never dealt with Furuno - so no comment there...but I have heard positive comments.

[pelican]

for what it's worth:
i'm a big fan of the raymarine units-the sounder function is fantastic !
just be sure you have an appropriate power supply to these units-very voltage sensative...

[Basspond]

for what it's worth:
i'm a big fan of the raymarine units-the sounder function is fantastic !
just be sure you have an appropriate power supply to these units-very voltage sensative...

Love the sounder on my Raymarine, the chartplotter is fine. I like the chartplotters on the garmin units a little better.

I can also attest to the voltage sensitivity on the raymarines, not on my boat, but on a friend's we did have issues with a C120 when the batteries were not fully charged.