Debating on getting a sonar unit on Black Friday sale for a 16' stick steer boat that stays at my home lake. Have a Helix 10 setup on my bigger boat. BassPro has a 7" Helix SI model for $500 but also has a Lowrance Elite9 Ti2 for $600 and the Garmin EchoMap uhd-93SV for $600. All are SI units and are not going to be networked...will just run solo at the bow in the stick steer. Would normally lean towards the bigger screen but haven't ever run a lowrance or a Garmin unit. Current unit on the boat is a monochrome 4" Piranha or the like (more of a depth approximator and thermometer than a fish finder). What is the difference between an EchoMap 93 and a 94? Should I just stay with the smaller screen so I can stay with the Bird interface which I already know? One other note....the lake this will be on is private so no mapping currently exists. Also anyone that has used any of these units to make a map of private water would be appreciated! Thanks in advance for the thoughts.....or if you know where I can find a 9 or 10" helix SI unit for $600 or so that would make my life easier!!!

On the bow, things like computer processing speed aren’t as important as they are at the helm.


How is your eyesight?
Another couple of things to consider.


Will any of those units communicate with the trolling motor you have on the bow, if at some point you wanted an auto anchoring trolling motor?
Are any of those units livescope compatible if you wanted to add that at some point?

Found the Garmin UHD93 at west marine for $549. May give it a shot....

Good choice: the echomap UDH93sv is compatible with the Force TM and panoptix.

I continue to use Lowrance Elite models at the helm for mapping.
The third party mapping software I use (Reefmaster) is most compatible with Lowrance.

At the bow/TM, I use an older Humminbird G2 Helix 7 primarily because I got a good deal.

Garmin has a proprietary mapping and waypoint language and Quickdraw software to make your own maps (several good Youtube videos on Quickdraw with Garmin).

The only things keeping me with Lowrance at the helm are the 2D and the mapping compatibility with Reefmaster.

For that price, hell yes !

Get thi biggest screen you can afford features dont really matter

Double check your ads, some of those will be on sale as of 6:00 AM Monday.

The West Marine website says $649.99

You are correct, the Black Friday ad is confusing. the 73 is $649. $599 at BassPro is the best I can find on the 93. West will match it however.

If your looking at bass pro or Cabelas you better be first in line because the sale is for one maybe 2 units. I quit shopping them because of that. I had the flu last year sick as [censored] wanted to get my son a reel they had on sale. Got there when they opened and guess what they were sold out. I goto fun and sun now.

Well, some say revenge is sweet. You gave their employees the flu in return! Just kidding......sort of.