great info from all. spent sometime today at local bps and was really impressed with both units however, i found the lowrance to have some additional features that sold me. it was also interesting to find out after all the research i wasn't the only one who was interested in this unit. i had to put my name on a waiting list for both the hds 10 and the structure scan. almost reason enough to go with the bird

Just look on this forum alone at all the complaints against Lowrance. Everyone knows of Linda Colt at Lowrance. Can anyone tell me the name of a customer service rep. at Hummingbird? No you know why. Because there are no issues with water getting into the Hummingbird units.
Lowrance shows a better sonar picture because it is computer processed image. Hummingbird is a true picture.
Buy the Hummingbird, I sure wish I had.

I just got the 1197 SI and I need help to learn to really take advantage of my electronics. If anyone has any good tips or advice on how you use yours that would be great.

Lowrance Customer Service Sucks just give them a call and see - Feel the Pain !

all n all the biggest difference between the two is the fact that the customer service sux with lowrance. it seems its more of a personal preference as both units are very comparable. does the bird have a screen selection split four ways like the lowrance which will show side,down,sonar,map at the same time.

I love having all four panels on one screen on my HDS-10. I've seen comments about it not being user friendly that I don't understand. The menus are pretty straight forward as far as I can tell. Maybe it just has more features. I've never had problems with my HDS or my LMS-520's, for what it's worth. Good luck with your decision.

I have had a lcx-27 and a HDS 7 both go bad, not a good experience with Lowrance. I recently bought a HB 898 and so far so good. I do not like not being able to move or change the size of the data on the left side though. The HDS 7 you could change the size and move data all over the screen.