Just bought a boat and the prev owner took out his Lowrance which was a lake version and I will do most of my boating on the Chesapeake and a few rivers. Trying to decide between the Lowrance HDS-5 Gen 2 or the Garmin 541, both are similar in price on Amazon.com with a thrull hull transducer which is what the prev owner had, so the hole is already there. Since I haven't operated either of these I value the opinions I will get on here.

Every Garmin hand held I have ever owned has died within a year or two. I do not know about the others but I would never buy another Garmin anything.

I like my HDS-5, easy to use and no problems so far.

On West marine the lake version gets great reviews 5 stars while the Nautic version gets 1 star, Garmin 541 gets 4 stars. Lake version of Lowrance is no good for me.

I just installed a new Garmin 546s and it works great down South and around the ICW, bought it at West and it came pre-loaded with all the maps I needed.

I installed a Lowrance unit flushmounted in my dash less than a year ago. I had a lowrance unit in my 252 and loved it as well. Anchor alarm is nice when out by your self as well.

Not sure about garmens, never had one.

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