I have just signed the dotted line for a new Surtees 575 HT. It turns up in November and I am starting to think about a plotter/fishfinder combo. My current boat has a Garmin 551S on it which seems to do the job but obviously there is a big jump in capability with the new units out there now.

At the moment I have narrowed it down to a Lowrance Elite 7 (or maybe 9") or a Garmin echoMap 75sv Plus. What I liked about the Lowrance was the easy ability to mark a spot on the sounder and have it immediately display as a mark on the plotter. The Garmin seemed to be a more complicated process. What I liked about the Garmin was how it redrew the map in real time to 1ft contours using sounder info. For the Lowrance it seems you have to upload the sonar recording to a website, which you pay to join, then download the new map. A bit of a PIA.

Any thoughts either way?

Personally, I would insist on a touch screen. Ive had a touch screen garmin chartplotter (Montana 600), and it was easy and fast to operate. It went on the blink, and later Im using a Lowrance Elite-7 HDI (because I had it in reserve after earlier buying an extra unit in a boat). The Elite-7 (not touch) is extremely slow and hard to operate, sometimes almost drives me mad. Also - the garmin had no bugs in it, the Elite-7 has some annoying bugs in it - that might not be the case with all Lowrances but its put me off them. Also - I am not impressed with the Lowrance sonar, seems to lose its sight of the bottom too much (even in 30m not very deep). Cant comment on garmin sonar.

I should have said, it's the Lowrance Elite 7 TI, which is a touch screen, as is the Garmin. I was initially looking at the Garmin Hook2 triple shot as it seems very good value. But after playing with the touch screen models, I think these are the way to go.

Take a good look at The Garmin 7410. You can touch any point on the sounder and it will create a waypoint for that spot. You can scroll back through the sonar screens and mark sign you've gone over.
Also has structure scan, chirp and can draw your own contour lines, although I haven't played too much with this feature.

Hi, I just bought a Simrad GO7 with totalscan transducer and Cmap+ charts for little over $1200 after long search for a new sounder. 

'A bit of topic, but has anybody tried to use a fish finder o monitor a freediver during his dive?'

Angler103 wrote: A bit of...