well i am looking to buy my husband a portable gps aroung the $200. range. can anyone give my an idea of the best and what to look for.

Buy the lowarnce h20.

Check out this recent thread for lots of thoughts, where to buy etc

http://www.texasfishingforum.com/.ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=013068#000012

I will second the h2o.

If you are looking for something simple to use and to mark fishing spots on a local lake, you might look at the Magellan Esplorist 100. It sells for $100 at Academy and probably all of the other outdoor stores. No maps or anything fancy for traveling. After marking fishing locations it will get you there easily.

Bill

I was in the same position you were and started the thread that is mentioned above. After all of the reccommendations that the folks on the forum were so kind to provide, I went with the Lowrance H20c plus package from GPS and Marineworld (see link below) http://www.gpsandmarineworld.com/lowran03.html
Here is my two cents after a couple of weekends using it. It is awesome! Unless you are dead set on the $200 range, I would definately get the color model and definately get the plus pkg ($288) that comes with the power cord(you burn batteries pretty quick when fishing all day) and you also get mapcreate software that allows you to download maps from CDs to the chip in the GPS. There are also advanced lake maps that Lowrance lets you download from their website for free. I don't know how good some of the other sw is like Navionics, but this works great. I looked at most of them out there and for the money this one beat them all in my opinion.

Thanks for all the help. will be purchasing one soon, for my husband.

nancy