Have been looking at buying one of these. What are the pros & cons for this particular model?

Partner has one, wishes he had bought the basemap and then added a Nav chip. He did have one that had the water issue (bought it AS SOON as they came out) but lowrance replaced it and he had it in hand w/in 7 days.
Other than that, the unit has been flawless. Easy to navigate thru screens and views, and offers good detail for guys who are novice's at fine tuning a unit.

It's excellent. I would prefer the bigger screen of the 8 and 3 independent split screens (with the 7 you only have 2). If you have the money get the 8, but if you don't, you'll still be happy with the 7.

I'm convinced that the Insight mapping is a waste of money. If you don't get it, it comes with Lowrance basemapping. The regular base mapping shows all cover like roads, foundations, etc.. If you use that along with Navionics I believe you have the best available maps -- Insight looks cool with its 3D pictures but to me it has very little utility.

I just bought an HDS 5 and will be adding the HDS8. I really studied the units and decided for me that the 8 is the way to go as it has the soft touch keys. Of course you can use the menu driven 5 and 7 inch but after using my 5 inch -- I will be getting the 8 inch. I LOVE my HDS with side/structure scan but the 8" with the soft touch keys will have advantages over the 7".

There have been many customer complaints in the past but since the new company purchased Lowrance everything is ok now. I had an issue with an older unit, sent it in for service, they just sent me a new one -- NO CHARGE. How does it get any better than that?

If you want to add structure scan at some point, do yourself a favor and get the HDS-8. You will be happy you did, or regret it if you don't. If you don't plan to get LSS, then a 7 is awesome for mapping and traditional sonar. I have a HDS-5 with structure scan because of budget limitations. It is ok for side imaging if you have good eyesight, but having to constantly flip from screen to screen to see the down image, side image, and map is a hassle to say the least.

I also agree the lake insight is not terribly useful. It's easy to see large-scale lake structures where it might not be so obvious with only topo lines, but once you start trying to find details about a single ridgeline, for example, it's not very useful. You'll need an add-on chip like Navionics for detailed topography. Though, there are things that Navionics does not show, like topography in stump fields where the Insight map will. So, I have used them interchangeably if one of the maps is lacking a detail I'm looking for. But, Navionics is what I have running 99% of the time.

Thanks to all who responded. Everyone seems to agree that Lake Insight is waste of money.