i had the 400C. bought it to replace my B&W hummingbird 535 and it was a mistake. the garmin is not waterproof, there are vent holes in the back. when you zoom it just increases the pixel size not really a proper zoom. at full zoom it lookes like an old game of space invaders. it lost the bottom often and took forever to find it again.

thanks for the comments guys now I really  don't know what to buy , I did go and speak to some of the retailers around Tauranga about b/w or colour as I was not totaly set on colour but they all say go for colour , sales talk I guess !

mackem wrote: ... I did go and speak to some of the retailers around Tauranga about b/w or colour as I was not totaly set on colour but they all say go for colour , sales talk I guess !

Yeah he hardly talked it up

I read that link newkakker ' good thread' but I can only afford to go up to about $550 so it limits my choice of colour greatly , thats why i'm looking at  the garmins 300 / 400c also looking at Eagle cuda 300 , eagle fish easy 245 ds and the lowrance x50 ds which I have been told is the same as the cuda 300???  any body want to throw anything else into the mix ?

Macken a bigger screen and more pixels will give you a better display picture but what will really help with those samller and cheaper untis is a high -performance transducer and what that means is a narrow beam (approx 8 deg) versus standard which is a round 20 degrees. This is a bit like a torch with a pencil beam versus wide and so it will penetrate further and its beam is more concentrated and will give better target resolution and return stronger echoes of fish.