I am thinking of using the Lowrance Elite 5 ti on the front of my boat. is the five-inch big enough for clarity? Also, i saw several websites with refurbished units at discounted prices. In your opinion are they worth the discount, do they last? i am torn between the Hook2 7 w/ triple shot and Elite 5 TI. I heard that the elite models you can wifi with a tablet. I took my i pad on the boat and attempted to use it but like some have said it was hard to see

I just put a Hook 7 on my Tri-toon. The graph and GPS are great. It is not an HDS, but works great to locate fish and with my waypoints downloaded from my center console HDS units, I am in business. It is a fully functional graph for around $300 plus.

Hope that helps.

it does anyone else?

I'm running a Hook2 7 Tripleshot Chartplotter with Navionics+. Great little unit. No touch screen, wifi, trolling motor control, or NMEA, but if you don't need those bells and whistles, it's hard to beat. I'm happy with the side and down imaging. It's not like the old Hook series at all.

is it better than the hook gen one units?

They should have changed the branding because they are not even close to the same thing. It's way better. The Gen 1 Hook was just a re-branded Elite CHIRP which was really ancient tech. The Hook2 is fast with mapping (assuming you buy the unit with a chartplotter) and is quick on screen changes. The screen navigation is like the Elite TI, just no touch screen. Plus you can have side imaging with the Tripleshot transducer, the gen 1 Hook didn't have that option.

I could not find much info on the splitshot ducer. Will it do side scan with the definition of the total scan ducer. I think the total scan will do 455/800

As far as I as can tell, the TripleShot (the SplitShot only does 2D and DI) is everything the Totalscan is, as far as performance. I can set it to 455/800 on both DI and SI. Images look really good to me. Not Humminbird Mega good, but equivalent to what I have seen on a Totalscan.

Along with the graph you must understand seasonal patterns or that graph is just a screen you stare into endlessly.