GPS,..Lakemaster or Navionics..?

I have the Nav Prem, but the options on the LM look good,..

Has anyone on here used the Lakemaster on Fork and knows how it compares with the Navionics? I rode around with Doug Vahrenburg on Fork and he had the Lakemaster chip and it looked pretty good but I didn't have a chance to check it's accuracy or coverage compared to the Navionic's. What I saw though, looked good. Just wondering if anyone has had a chance to try it out on Fork and if so what are your opinions? Thanks in advance.

I bought the Lakemaster chip specifically for Fork and have been very pleased. I havent compared it with Navionics side by side, but Lakemaster has awesome detail and seems to be very accurate. It also has some cool features like depth shading/highlighting and water level offset that I dont believe Navionics offers.

i bet it will look good in that side imaging unit hehe.

Remember, Navionics had a Fork update released a few weeks back and another one is almost ready to go live, so what you compare to today will not be the same data available in a week or so.

The updates are free with any Navionics Premium or Platinum Card purchased since OCT 1, 2010. You also get a free Lake PC application with the chart purchase (worth $30).

There are also a number of feature and function updates coming that will also be free to download. Some of these may change the functionality and appearance of the product substantially.

I currently have a Navionics chip with the latest update but need a chip for the bow unit. I'm getting tired of exchanging it back and forth. I have the PC app and its nice. I need the blanks spot on Fork filled in. Hopefully this next update will do that. The current version is good, but I have found some minor inconsistincies. I just need another chip and want to spend my hard to come by money wisely.

Does anyone know if the Lakemaster chips will work on the pre-HDS Lowrance units?
Navionics is horrible...I "upgraded" my Navionics chip the year before last and lost the main Northern creeks on Ray Roberts.
Jeff@Navionics on our forum won't return a PM...

But, us that purchased the same chip prior to Oct. 1 are left in the dark. Doesn't seem quite right. Just saying!

I haven't been very pleased with the Navionics Platinum! Lowrance Map on it is more accurate and gives me all the creek channels to follow.

Good luck updating the Navionics chip! I have one and it sucks! I have a problem with the chip and had to call customer service. They had to file a "case" is what they told me. That was a week ago and I haven't heard sh@t back from them.

I went to BPS a few days ago to specifically look at the Lakemaster map chip. I took along several confirmed waypoints of features on Fork such as creek channel junctions, bridges etc. and took a look at where the Lakemaster showed them to be. It was off-location significantly!!

It does look better than the Navionics chip with regard to coverage, but if the accuracy is in question, what good is it!

Note that if you do such a comparison yourself, you need to zoom in the range pretty tight. What looks good on the .5 mile scale or higher can be way off when zoomed in close. If the map won't get me within casting distance of an interesting feature; I don't need the map!

My $.02!

C.

I have BOTH the Lakemaster and the Navionics Premium. Both have their advantages and their disadvantages. Both are spot on on some structures and way off on others.

The Lakemaster has a very cool feature that lets you mark shallow water red. So say for example your lake is 5 ft low. You mark the first five foot read and you know that is dry now and there is no need to fish that. Then you can also highlight depths in green. If you have fish on points in 10-20 ft of water you highlight that area green and then you can eliminate water that does not fall in that range. Creek channels are bright pink in the lakemaster. Very easy to see compared to Navionics. But the map does seem to have more errors as far as location of specific items than navionics.

The Navionics is very detailed and very accurate on most thing. But there are several areas of Lake Fork and Tawakoni that I have seen that are not mapped at all! Not ever basic contour lines. To their credit you can upgrade the Navionics card. But it is not as easy of a process as they make it sound. Even after two upgrades there are is still missing information on Fork which seems to be the big push with Navionics from what I seeing with their comments on this forum.

It is going to boil down to personal preference, both will do you a good job. It just depends what you are looking for in a map card.

+1 spot on. I use lake master and have nav. but it is personal preference.The reason I use lake master is the depth highlight option which I love