so many folks don't match their fish finder to their trolling motor. Not doing so loses a great deal of capability to easily lock down on fish found on side, down or 2D sonar.

uhh most of the trolling motors will accept any transducer

Livescope is better anyway

You're not getting the picture my friend. Not matching the units provides no I Pilot or Auto Pilot capability which is a huge plus.

I-pilot can work off a remote you just won't be able to follow contours

Garmin doesn't even have that. You can have it follow a path or to a waypoint but half the time it errors out and gives up

So the functionality matching provides is prolly not deemed to have value to most boat buyers. I do not even know how to do the things mentioned above on my matched tm and electronics.

Not an old...but when I bought my boat, there wasn't as many options available and the dealer I purchased from was not authorized service center for the other brand. Looking back, I should have trusted my gut and went all Hummingbird and Ultrex. Now I have to buy Lowrance Ghost or switch out all my graphs. Either way it's expensive. AHAHAHAHHA

Let me clarify.

Not having the capability to Link your MFD (fish finder) with your trolling motor is a big disadvantage IMO.

Not a big disadvantage

i think you're confused on what features are available without linking a graph, which your original post was only about sonar

I personally would not want to run a humminbird unit just to follow contour lines

Maybe this video will help explain to those who may not understand the advantage of being able to link your MFD (fish finder) and trolling motor. This is the functionality you loose when the fish finder and trolling motor are not compatible (ie MinnKota trolling motor and Lowrance MFD fish finder).

I'm able to do what is in the video, but have never used that feature.

I know it sure works well when fishing whites & stripers. Also think it would be good for locating and getting on crappie brush piles.

Pretty cool features T Bird.

Well, speaking from my own experience, it wasn't necessary for the way I fish. I mostly livescope for Crappie and then fish for channel/blue catfish. So I don't need to have my TM linked to my graph. I don't need to follow a contour line, "goto" a spot or things like that. The way I fish there wasn't justification to spend the extra $1000-$1500 so that I could network the graphs with the TM.

Hope that provides some insight for you.

I have been doing the same thing as in the video w/ a Motorguide Xi5 trolling motor linked to my lowrance units Bow & Console.Works perfectly because it was setup correctly. I was using older Lowrance Gen2 units but I wanted to upgrade to the newer Live units & wasn`t sure it would come together . The Lowrance Tech support assured me it would be no problem at all. Said Lowrance is pretty user friendly with it`s plug & play capabilities! I guess it`s all depends on the way you fish in how you use your electronics but the linked up system has worked for me especially when fishing several marked BP`s in a large area.

had ghost for a while with just a Helix for 360. now have HDS live, active target, and still have helix and 360. Use 360 and AT a ton. think ive used down scan maybe 5 times in a year since getting the live unit. it is nice having the unit talk to the Ghost, but Active target is the biggest thing.