I have hds and point one. I move stuff from boat to boat. Can't operate but 1 at a time anyhow. I spent the money on wiring and transducers.
So I have two boats with two greatly varying levels of electronics. One I’m happy enough with and the other not so much. We’re gonna be talking about the gps portion of these units and not the imaging part as they are all good these days. My big boat runs an HDS 8 and a global map 5200c and both use a point one antenna. Performance of these with the point 1 is excellent. I judge this by the screen showing where the boat is no matter (how slow or how much) the boat has moved.
The other boat uses an Elite 5DSI and the GPS sucks. Now before you tell me they are all accurate to within the same distance then you don’t understand the reason of this post. So say we find our mark and toss a marker bouy. If the suckey unit drifts slowly away it can go quite a distance before it wakes up and updates position on the screen.
So we’ll say the point 1 updates at 10 IPS and the elite 5 somewhere between 1 and 5 IPS. Why can the elite 5 slowly drift 25 feet from the mark and never update until the boat moves at a faster pace. That kind of blows the update speed theory.
So after this rambling I am looking for a new or newer unit to replace the 5DSI and would like far better GPS performance but keep in the sub 500 dollar range. Don’t think I really care about the brand anymore.
About all we see and hear about on these newer units is how brand X has such a better image then brand Y but not much on mapping and GPS features.
So lets hear your real experiences with with a unit I may be impressed with. Thank you.
I have hds and point one. I move stuff from boat to boat. Can't operate but 1 at a time anyhow. I spent the money on wiring and transducers.
Member BS Pro-Staff and Billbob Pro-Staff
Proud Member of Team Geezer... authorized by: billbob and "G"
I had a E5DSI (before breaking one of the pins in the back of the unit) and never had any problem with the boat icon being exactly where it should be on the map, when using the trolling motor. But, yeah .... left to drift and the update speed did seem to slow down and I could be a few yards away from my spot before the icon would re-position. I didn't have a map chip & seldom ever used the map.
Now I have a Hook 7 ... but haven't used it enough, yet, to see if it's any better/faster with the update speed. I do have a map chip for it, but haven't had the boat out since obtaining the chip. My intention is to do more jig & crank Pushing, and that's the main reason I got the chip.
I'm wondering if the Point One antenna is the major differing factor ??
My E5DSI's best shot of satellites :
(Oh, and don't bother looking for a hotspot with those coords ... I took that screenshot while sitting in my apt )
Cane Pole, wannabe fisherman LIKED above post
My E5DSI has a chart chip and it’s been a good little unit other than the lazy gps that’s usually napping on the job.
Position is not a direct result of gps raw data. It works on the principle of linear quadratic estimation. In other words, it is cheap program running the gps.
Member BS Pro-Staff and Billbob Pro-Staff
Proud Member of Team Geezer... authorized by: billbob and "G"
I agree, Flint ... I really liked my E5DSI unit (all the screenshots I've posted came from that unit) and I would have had it "fixed" had I been able to find a broken unit cheap, so I could scavenge the parts from it. As it was, I ended up with the Hook 7 (on sale) for about $100 less than I paid for the E5DSI (that I bought from a C.c member).
Member BS Pro-Staff and Billbob Pro-Staff
Proud Member of Team Geezer... authorized by: billbob and "G"