New plotter or new plotter/sounder combo?

[mjc85]

Chasing some opinions as I'm completely out of touch with marine electronics.

I have a Furuno FCV627 (superceded) sounder and had a Garmin 172C plotter that has died.

Trying to decide whether to ditch the Furuno and get a Lowrance HDS7 Gen3 ($1419 with structure scan and downs scan transducer) combo or similar or keep the Furuno FCV627 and get a standalone 5" plotter or combo to use for chart plotting only alongside the Furuno.

If the Furuno is considered a decent sounder still and I'd see no improvement in sounding apart from structurescan which 5" unit would you recommend for use as a plotter?

Cheers

Mitch

[scottar]

Going to depend on what sort of fishing you are into. Personally I tend to fish offshore. As such I would be hanging onto the Furuno (have a 627 myself) and replacing the Garmin with another Garmin that has NMEA2000 if your engine is compatible for fuel management. If you are fishing inshore then the structure scan may well be of benefit.

[mjc85]

I do fish about 80% in shore. The Garmin looks great but I can't believe they left out the touch screen. I had a play around with the Simrad Go7 XSE and the HDS7 and if you saw something you like on the sounder you could just touch on it and it would make a cross hairs on the plotter which you could then navigate back to or save as a waypoint. Obviously this could be done with the Garmin but cumbersome with the cursor. Has anyone got any experience with the Simrad Go7 XSE?