GME G-Fish Digital Fishfinder

[cehart]

Can anyone comment on these, seem reasonably spe'd for the price, but have googled and can find little information.

I'm looking at around $550 and this falls in this range.

The last 3 Lowrance that I had all fogged up within warranty but to get them replaced was a proper PIA so I won't be going there again.

Cheers

[finga]

Personally I wouldn't bother with any GME gear for the marine environment.
Plenty of better brands about

[cehart]

Personally I wouldn't bother with any GME gear for the marine environment.
Plenty of better brands about

Why, did you have one and it had problems, what have you based your opinion on??

[Sevric]

I had the combo GME unit and the only good thing about it was the price. Unless they have changed they have no white line and a complex menu to follow. Years of using marine electronic did not prepare me for this unit. Purchase another brand is my advice.

[cehart]

I had the combo GME unit and the only good thing about it was the price. Unless they have changed they have no white line and a complex menu to follow. Years of using marine electronic did not prepare me for this unit. Purchase another brand is my advice.

Fair call but apart from those two issues, did the unit fail, misread, stop reading, fog as do anything that stopped it from working.

[finga]

Service form GME is non existent.
So even if the unit is the best in the world there's no after sales service.
This I have based on previous experience where GME blamed everything other then their product.

What features of this particular sounder do you like??

[cehart]

Price is attractive as $550 is the max that I can spend, with this one, one would get a decent size screen 142mm with reasonable resolution 480 x 640, 2 year warranty, IPX 7 rating ( mounting in open boat) and its not a Lowrance.

Had issues with a GME 27 meg ( did last many years before playing up) and I dropped it to the local GME agent (SA) and the service was ok ( better than Lowrance) but it was several years ago,

I'm more interested in what failed or went wrong.

Cheers

[Sevric]

[QUOTE=cehart;1341440]Fair call but apart from those two issues, did the unit fail, misread, stop reading, fog as do anything that stopped it from working.

No nothing went wrong or broke but personally i wasted my money. It is hard for me to admit this as i have been into marine electronics and growing with it since the early 70's and thought i knew enough to make a good decision on what to buy. You will find that identifing bottm sturcture and the composition of the bottom rather difficult with no white line. GME will proudly tell you they have the most advanced digital screening and interpretation in their unit but it is all a load of rubbish. This factor alone i found frustrating beyond belief as in a new area i could not tell if it was reef, gravel, sand on the bottom. Could not identify larger objects on the bottom as it appears as simply the sea floor. I have no idea what the intended purpose you wish to use the unit for but other than for the very most basic tasks forget it. Please note the amount of people who have replied to your thread, at this stage 2. The most likely reason many others have not replied is that they do not have one and would not buy one.
The white line issue is the tip of the iceberg; a hugely complex menu system is any thing but user friendly and as Finga pointed out their after sales service on their whole product line is some what lacking. That is not to say that other brands have great after sales service, none of them do. They all seem to have made the priority of after sales a very low one. My advise is to purchase some thing else.

[finga]

For less then the $550 I am still led to believe you can get a Furuno LS 4100 and get a lot of change.
These sounders have stood the test of time, they work (and work well) and the service agents (Taylor Marine) are good.

The LS4100 may not be colour BUT it will tell you more then what I'm believed the GME will tell you.

[lethal]

I picked up a lowrance HDS5X for $570 from the states earlier this year, pretty happy with it but if i were to buy again i would stick with Humminbird.

[cehart]

I looked at the ls4100 in the first place but the specs and getting comfirmation from Taylors that it reads from 2.0 metres plus meaning that it doesn't read properly at anything under 2.0 metres and to me this is useless as alot of my fishing is in shallow estuaries.

Others have replied that the unit reads in less than 2.0 metres but based on what taylors have indicated that they don't, it's worthless for my purpose as unfortunate ass it may be.

Lack of bottom definition and seperation is of definate concern, ah well its back to the drawing board,

[Stewey]

Hi. I just purchased a Garmin echo 550c from o/s for under $500 aus. Seems to work a treat. Purchased from koala gps. Have used it both shallow and 70 to 90 feet. No problems and good definition.

[finga]

LS4100 works in less then 2m.
Well mine does anyways