Anybody have or ever use a Garmin 431
 

Anybody have or use one? Thinking about that or getting a used 176c. What one would be better. Also the 431 says it has maps, are they good enough and helpful.

i know the dimensions but I just dontw want it to be huge either

I have the Garmin 545s and love it. I bought the extra maps along with the Bluechart Vision. Used it down at Tickfaw and I had a bunch of folks following me to avoid all the shallow spots and under water wrecks. Small enough to be on my dash with out taking away from the other gauges.

thanks looks to be same size as the 431. I got a fountain and just dont want it to look gawdy

I have the Garmin 440. Not a bad unit, wish I could have gotten the 500 series, but it didn't fit. I have the Bluechart Vision as well. Without that, it's a fairly plain unit. MegaGPS had a big sale, and practically gave away the Bluechart card.

the only differance I could find between the 431 and the 500 series was the 500 series came preloaded with coastal areas instead of inland lakes that the 431 does.

Interesting. I have the 440 and find that the built in maps are great. Shows the channel, water depths, buoys, marina's, etc. Haven't seen a reason to buy the chip.

My Navionics app for 10 bucks on my phone gives better graphics.


The 500 series has a larger screen. It's worth it IMO.

Guess its just a matter of me not knowing what I'm missing. Just so I understand, is it prettier graphics or more info?

One thing I don't like about 440 (and I assume all the new Garmin's are the same) is the number of steps you have to go through to "go to" a way point. The old Garmin's were much easier.

IMO how much do you really need. As long as you have speed depth, and general lay out of the water you should be fine. Unless you are a fisherman i dont see a need to know how much seaweeds on the bottom and be able to count stones down there. Second thing is once you buy maps they are outdated the second you buy them because the water is always changing, so in reality you should get new maps every year. I would bet if you bought a 2011 map it probably data from 2010 anyways so you are already a year behind.

My question does the 400 series pre loaded maps have depth