Anyone Use A Handheld Chartplotter?
 

I'm curious. I am looking at getting something portable for the new boat since I don't want to perminantely mount, drill, or cut anything into the new boat. I saw Garmin has a few like the 78sc and others. Are they even worth considering? Just looking for opinions. I want to actually get out farther this year since I'm stepping into something bigger and would be nice to be able to set some waypoints to places where I don't go often.

I had a hand held mounted to dash with the suction cup mount on my old Nordic, It worked fine. It is just what you think it is, a smaller version of the bigger units. Yes you had to look at little closer at times but it did the job no problem. I had no regrets using it because I didn't have unrealistic expectations for it. It'll get you where you want to go with plenty of information, I wouldn't hesitate again if the circumstances called for it.

Thats all I'm looking for.. I am headed to West Marine today just to get some eyes on a few. I just want to expand my runs and with more fuel and bigger boat I want to cover myself in not so familiar places.. The boat I bought is too clean to drill into lol...

My guess is that the resolution and display has improved a lot since I had one...go for it.

Save yourself a little money. I downloaded an app on my phone by Navionics. Its a pretty nice ap and you can zoom in/out etc.. I think it cost about $10.00. Used it in my trip to Florida this past winter and it was fairly accurate.

I use a Garmin 76 for marine. It floats, was cheap and is OK, not great.

Wannabe

Roll.....App name? Never mind, found it.

I just picked up the Garmin 78sc after work. I will see how it works out running up and down the bay lol... West Marine had them on sale so I figured I'd give it a try. I just can't bring myself to permanently mount something on the new setup :D

I put Navionics on my Tab 3 tablet and got a suction mount for the boat.

This worked really well for me until I was in the middle of Biscayne Bay with no service.........

Thats weird. I have no service plan on my tablet.. Navionics works off GPS . Still works even when my phone has no service.
The version of Navionics I got was closer to $40 thou

+1^^^^

The $9.99 navionics works fine on my tablet and phone. No service on my tab also since it is is a WiFi tab 2 10.1 ;)

All I can say is I had nuthin'...and the air was soon filled with obscenities...

Don't you have a big chart plotter on that AT?

I've been using a Garmin GPSmap478 for the past 5 years.

we didn't have any problems with loosing the charts on the app when we were out on Biscayne this February. And it helped save my drives when we were heading back from Gilberts and came upon some really shallow water till we found the channel. I do plan on updating the GPS chart plotter on my boat but, it is nice to have the phone app as a backup. It is kinda a pain in the arse to use while the boat is underway and you are trying to look at a little phone screen. LOL. I usually had to stop or hand my phone to someone else to navigate.