OK,,,,he is your chance to give YOUR opinion.
what would you upgrade to if you have been using a Lowrance HD Elite 7 as your primary electronics.

Touchscreen, 9 or 12 depending on funds

This, or the Garmin is great for the price.

Garmin 93sv

Touchscreen HDS 12s

Love mine

Ray Marine

what is the best unit for finding off-shore underwater brushpiles ?
which one can an "old man" look at & understand the best ?

most all electronics. you pick what you like. cant go wrong with any brand

That's a political answer if I ever saw one.
C'mon Man,,,,,give some opinions,,,,, give some reasons why one is better than another,,,,, here is a chance to just speak out.

be opinionated

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the-water/fishfindergpscombos/gpsmap-7616xsv/prod502861.html

nuff said, end of discussion

Lowrance is user friendly

for the price I buy a pair of 1199 hummingbirds and if money was no object I would buy an onyx for the back and an HDS 12 for the front because i can run the map that I like in the bird and the lowrance I can do my drop shotting up front

Had the exact same question asked to me the other day and i will give you a very unbiased answer.

My first boat has Lowrance units and I added an DI unit to it. Like pretty much everything about how it worked.

We I got my Legend a couple years back it came with Birds (998 SI/DI and a 798 SI/DI). I really didn't care one way or the other. I fugred I would learn to use whatever was on there. I have since replace both of those units with Lowrance Gen 3 Touch screens units (9 and a 7)

Here are the differences I found:

*The Birds had a much easier screen and function navigation than the old Lowrance units. This changed with the new Touch Screen units because they give you the ability to create numerous short cuts that are available with a single touch of the screen.

*The imaging is definitely better on the Lowrance, but not like it was night and day, it was just a little better.

*I seemed to have more interference with my Birds than I have had with my new Lowrance units. This may have just been a bad install or transducer on the old 998, but it was pretty noticeable.

One other cool feature I got with the new Lowrance units was when I would come home and put boat in the garage, if the units were on, they would automatically connect to my wi-fi and download and current software updates if available.

I have heard the customer service for Lowrance is horrific but I have never had to use them.

Other than these little things, I don't see major differences in Birds and Lowrance and I KNOW tons are going to disagree in the typical Chevy-Ford kind of way but that's how I feel. I have zero experience with any other units so can't be of help there. So if it were me, I would buy the whatever size Lowrance Gen 3 you want.

Thanks Chris,,,,,now that is an opinion w/ reasons.

What is the difference between the Gen 2 & Gen 3 Lowrance units ?

Gen 3 you get the buttons back which is nice when you are driving across the lake and want the rocker to zoom in or out or do just about anything for that matter. You have the buttons as an option in addition to the touch screen.

Gen 3 is a multi-touch display meaning you can pinch in and out just like a smart phone.

Gen three is WiFi enabled like he said so that any software updates are done without any little cards being put into a computer the way you used to.

Gen 3 uses Micro SDs instead of the regular SDs which I would say is the only down side. I have seen a Micro break before which the regular SDs didn't do.

The Gen 3 is quite a bit faster.

Gen 2s are great but the 3s are even better.