Keith is right on the money with everything he said. I also bought into the HB 1198 and also a 998 on the bow. Total disappointment and sold them and bought Lowrance HDS and could not be happier. I can name you three of the best crappie guides on this forum and they used nothing but HB for years and are now switching to HDS's. I wonder way?????
Please do yourself a favor and go see in actual fishing conditions and then decide.
And, I'm sick of all the Lowrance bashing on here, mostly by one individual that seems to consider himself an expert. And now is saying that Lowrance is showing things that aren't there. What a joke he is.

All you horn tooting my unit is best,are hilariussssss.

There is no best. Each has pros & cons, it's up to the user to decide which pros are best for him. My pros for the Lowrance graphs are: lots of users adjustable options, you can change the overlayed info to your likings, auto adjusting structure scan (no fiddling required), 4 screen split (sonar, GPS chart, down imaging & side imaging).

Some say the menus are too hard to learn, well that's because there are 1,000 different options for your own customization.

The only pros I see with Hbird is the excellent shallow water performance of the side imaging and their use of Lakemaster features.

The new touch screen is real nice. Makes it easier to pick what ya want.

Whatever you get if you want maximum performance from your unit go fish with a guide running the product you decide to buy. This is the best way to set one up.

IMO product bashing one way or the other is because they don't know how to set up the product properly.

Sold my 1198 & bought a HDS. Learned deep fishing techniques on lowrance, hence I'm going to it. They're both good. It's a ford/Chevy debate.

So do any of you crappie fisherman know what page this pic Lean Post is referring to? I'd like to see it.

I just went back and re-read all of his posts on this topic and didn't see any reference to a page in any manual. I'll just leave it at that so I, too, don't get banned from the forum for calling a spade a spade!

pm JACOB645 and ask him to post the pic of the pvc crappie condo he dropped, then immediately scannned with his lowrance.
Okie I really dont understand why you need sonar anyway. Ive been told by several that you follow chuck around cedar creek all day looking for leftovers. is that correct? and you hold yourself in very high regard as a fisherman, didnt you go all the way to mississippi, hire a guide and still couldnt catch a fish? dont throw rocks when u live in a glass house.

I help more people with sonar on and off this forum than you would ever realize. if you spent more time learning the humminbird unit you had, instead of criticizing people on this forum who have humminbird units, you would know how to use a sonar unit correctly.,

I didn't read any post where he criticized any of the Hbird users. I'll admit I've seen some fantastic pics from 4 bird owners (2 frequent this forum, all 4 frequent the other forum) but I've read alot more complaints from guys that couldn't get good images.

So you don't know what page this pic is on or did Jacob erase it? I don't really want to bother the guy and since you're the one that mentioned how horrible the pic is I figured you'd know where it was. I'd really like to see it, I love looking at images. Maybe since you are a bird master maybe you can post a few of those fantastic screenshots you have? Then I can make my list 5 Hbird users who have the ability to dial in their graph. Post as many as your like, like I mentioned I like to look at all of them and learn.



Here's some more SI/DI images in case you like to look at them too.

LP, thanks for your response! You are correct, I did travel to Grenada and hired a guide and still didn't do well at all. I simply know I'm not a crappie guru and am smart enough to know that if I travel 500 miles for a once in a lifetime venture I need all the help I can get on a lake I've never seen or know anything about. I think most people would do the same since we don't have an aquarium with a crappie in it to guide us on how to fish on a particular day!
As for Jacob's pic of the condo he set out, those of us that set out pvc condos don't find it unusual to pick up air bubbles escaping from the pvc pipe and showing up on our HDS units. Maybe your HB doesn't see this?
And your comment about Chuck, doesn't even warrant a response.

Now, I like to consider myself a pretty easy going person and enjoy meeting new people. With that in mind, how about accepting an invitation to bring your boat up to CCL and we'll go fishing together? We can go out on my boat and I'll show you a few spots on my HDS and than later, we'll go out on your boat and I'll give you the coordinates and see what those same spots look like on your HB? Who knows, we might become close friends or at the very least, enjoy being out on the water and catching a few fish.
What say you?

Well I'm about to get 2 for my boat Looking at a Lowrance Elite-7x HDI Fishfinder and for the trolling motor a Elite-5 HDI. Would like any comments about the units , good or bad. If you have 1 of these I would be more than happy to see it in action. or if you think I should get another unit , let me know I will take a look at it. I will be fishing for Bass and Crappie. Catfish when my son comes along.

The only piece of electronics I have on my boat is the in dash flasher and I seem to catch a reasonable amount of fish. IMO, it doesn't matter what you have, you just need to take the time to learn it.

I'm running both brands right now on the same boat. Although I have to give HB 998 an edge on navigation responsiveness and zoom in capability (10' range) vs Lowr Elite 7 (50' range). I haven't add any map card on the Elite 7 so if anyone can tell me that I can zoom in further by adding a mapping card (which mapping card), I'd appreciate it. For now, I think that the zoom capability is built in the unit and mapping cards won't help me in zooming...

Since the Elite 7 is the low end, it comes it a built in GPS which ping 1 per second. The HDS units are much faster. To maximize the Elite 7, I will eventually add a Point-1 external antenna which will ping 10 times per second.

On the other hand, when comparing Downscan imaging between my low end Elite 7 to HB 998, HB can't touch it with a 10' pole. In short, HB graphics sux big time!!!!

I can get an external antenna to improve my Elite navigation, but I can't do anything to improve me HB graphic!

If $$$ ever avail, 12 touch will ultimately replace HB 998, and I'll keep my Elite 7 with improved antenna...

Customer service? Don't have prob with neither company!