I went to check out all the booths at the classic today and was rather unimpressed with Navionics. It seems like Lakemaster is way more 'robust' and feature rich. Navionics seems quite juvenile to what Lakemaster offers. The only problem is that for me, Navionics is the only one available in the California lakes that I fish. I recently bought my first boat and it came with 2 nice HB graphs so I was thinking about buying a chip. After seeing the show this weekend I am thinking I might wait for the Lakemaster to come to CA lakes.

I was very impressed with the 'range' feature where you can input a depth range. For example, if you know the fish are mostly holding on points in the 25-30 foot range, you can go to the option and put a variance in from 25-30 feet. It will now show you on the gps/maps view a bright, easily identifiable color highlighting ONLY the parts of the lake that are from 25-30 feet deep.

For some reason on the Navionics, it seems like you can only input a depth and anything below it. It's more of a 'safety feature' meaning, you would put in X depth (say 20 for example) and the shaded area would be from 20 feet all the way down to 0 feet. I just think that is way less useful than what Lakemaster showed me.

All in all, I still think BOTH programs have a long way to come. Think about how our car GPS units were about 7-8 years ago- very primitive. Now everyone uses these kick butt GPS Google/Maps etc. apps on their phone and everything is very simple and robust. I feel GPS/Chartplotting/etc. devices have some work to become more advanced and feature rich... Also a better UI would help.

Just my thoughts. Would love to hear other people's opinions on the pros/cons of each. thanks!

My Eagle Ultra Classic Plus does that.

I would be interested to see if we could get a comprehensive test on the accuracy of both of them on one of the more popular lakes, like Fork or Falcon. Accuracy is much more important to me than features or being able to code some depth range a certain color. And yes, while both are lacking in features somewhat, you have to remember that until now, no one company has owned both the software and hardware development, so I'm sure they're pretty limited as to what they could do.

I think it limited ot only HB units. I believe they bought them. Too bad, they could open a whole new market if allowed to be run on Lowrance units. I won't purchase a HB just to get Lakemaster though.

Johnson owns both HB and Lakemaster. I doubt they will make maps for Lowrance.

Navionics is a rip off but the problem is until other companies get into the mapping game they are the only game in town. The Navionics iPhone app is better than the cards at a fraction of the cost. If they can put the details on the iPhone app why not the cards? Just waiting for Lake Master to cover my lakes then my Navionics cards are gone!

Not much to talk about on lakemaster until they get more lakes covered. Nice features though.

Hey JR, they just released a whole new batch of lakes. It's card #2 Choke, Falcon, Amistad not sure about O.H. though.


Lowrance is bringing out is own cards in March for us Lowrance users.
http://www.lowrance.com/Products/Mapping/Insight-HD-and-PRO/

What is wrong with Navionics? The updates and all have really improved Fork's map. Not sure about other places, but there isn't much "missing" on it these days.

I agree Cameron. The new Navionics map for Fork is much improved. The creek channels have all been very close or dead on.

What I would like to see, rather than highlighting a depth range, (and maybe Lakemaster can do this) is for Navionics to make their chips adjustable for water level. I'm sure the Falcon guys would love that too. I believe there was already a map chip out there that can do that, but I forget which one it is?

Bought a Lakemaster V2 yesterday and tried today. I have a Navionics and wanted another for my front. While the features of the Lakemaster are better, if you are on a lake that is not "HD" the chart is basically worthless. On Fayette this morning, found a nice hump off a long point with a rise from 18 to 14' on the Navionics card. Deep crank bite was solid with 8 caught in an hour or so. On the Lakemaster, it was just part of the point. You'd never know it was there.

On the Lakemaster the depths show in 5' gradients unless it's "HD". SHoreline, 5', 10', 15', 20' etc. You can't find creeks, drains, humps, ledges or anything with that little detail. The Falcon map is worse than that paper map with Choke on the other side. The Toledo Bend map is useless.
Mine is going back as pretty much all the lakes I fish are not mapped in HD. Might be a winner for Rayburn, Fork or Conroe, but check their list carefully before throwing down your money.

It sucks on Choke. Doesn't show creek channels, doesn't show pond/tank dams, road beds are easily 50 ft from where it shows, no foundations 1ft contour is the only positive over the factory Lowrance insight.

So which navionics chip should a guy buy? Platinum, gold, Etc?

Premium is plenty

The new V2 Lakemasters chip for TX/OK. Setting the water level on Falcon. When they created the chip, they used a 290 MSL. Thats 11' off the normal 301 MSL of Falcon. Just because the lake is now, 23' low, do not set your water offset to -23'. Do the math and then compare when on lake. Yes, it also sucks they dont have the HD version for Falcon but they do for so many other lakes such as Canyon Lake??