Buying a new fish finder

[SandsharkPolar]

With all the new fishfinders with chirp technology coming out you should be able to find a real nice leftover model without chirp for a clearance price. Check Cabelas or even local dealers for a good deal.

[gghisalberti]

After doing some research the past few days and checking a few out today at west marine I have learned a ton, but also have a few quesitons, if you guys would help it would be much apprecaited!

1. although i am relativly "new" to fishing only have fished for a few years with my dad and brother I think Strucutre scan would be cool and could be utilized pretty well, do you guys agree? like i said mainly fishing stripers, fluke, sea bass, ling..
2. that being said west marine has the lowrance hds 7 touch gen 2 for 800 and 400 for the scaning transducer with a 300 rebate so around 900 for the package, BUT the more research I do, I notice that people are having porblems with this unit
3. i know garmin just came out with a bunch of new units with a 100$ rebate and transducer included and scanning also. seems to be decent around 500-800
4. ray marine which a few of you have mentioned has the dragon fly model which seems to do all i need i think?, as i dont need to link more than one unit
also i am trying to keep it as reasonably priced as possible, one one last questoin (sorry i know a longggg post!) but are all these units capable of saving waypoints or routes / capable of entering cordinates to follow

as always thanks again guys!

[BCinerie]

I just installed a hummingbird helix 5 di and GPS. Worked great for first trip! Only 318 delivered. Has all great EZ to use features. Still have my old gps as backup. Nice to have 2 GPS units just in case !

[gghisalberti]

Thanks for the input! I have narrowed it down to 3 units.
1. Lowrance HDS 7 touch gen 2 with lss-2 transducer (non chirp) $900
2. Raymarine Dragonfly 7 $650
3. Garmin echoMAP 74sv $1,000

[team heat]

ive had the dragonfly for a year now and it does everything they say it does.Should be great for seeing bass at the shrewsbury rocks or finding wrecks or rockpiles.I also have a standalone gps just because i prefer not to keep switching screens.Cant go wrong with this unit.

[team heat]

Forgot to mention that the screen is very bright and in direct sunlight you will have no problem with not being able to see it.you can also purchase a lock that inserts into this machine so you dont have to worry about theft if you want to stop somewhere.