Tips For Buying a Fish Finder - Get the BEST PRICE Possible!!!

whether it's lowrance hummingbird garmin or raymarine i'm going to let you in on one of the biggest secrets in the industry today about the different sonar brands they're all hey guys i'm lauren and i want to welcome you to this video everybody wants to know the best tips and tricks for setting up their electronics to get the best picture for seeing fish and structure but what if you don't have electronics yet what are the best tips and tricks for buying electronics that's what we're going to cover in this video when i first got into pro staffing for lowrance back in 1999 options were limited compared to today the biggest factors in selling units then were screen resolution and sonar power those two things aren't really even considered by most people anymore when buying a unit 21 years later we've gotten to a point where they just don't matter as much because even the worst spec unit in a specific class will probably be more than enough for the average guy when you go into a store or visit a manufacturer's website and see hundreds of options it can be overwhelming if you aren't going in with some research done first to give you an idea of your starting point the purpose of this video is to help you narrow down your search to help the shopping process go smoother and ensure you don't get sold something you don't need i'm going to show you the best system you can employ to make sure you get the right unit for you and ensure you get it at the best possible price you might ask why do i need a plan going in to buy my electronics let's say you decide on a seven inch unit and all your friends are happy with hummingbird helix units so that's what you're gonna go get you go to the store you ask the guy for a helix seven sales guys looks at you and says yeah and you just think he didn't hear you and you repeat helix 7. well he heard you the first time but he needs to know which sub model of the helix 7 you want he goes on to tell you that there's actually 15 different versions of the helix 7. now with that info you get the deer in the headlights look and you're really no further ahead than when you walked in you're also in a position where you could be sold a version of the helix 7 that isn't right for you and whether that be oversold or undersold let's look at the decisions and considerations i think you need to review before you begin shopping the quickest way to narrow down your search for the right unit is deciding on the screen size and your budget these are the first two things you have to decide on because it is these two things that will eliminate the largest number of units that aren't a fit for you the other thing this does is it helps you better compare apples to apples if you haven't decided on a brand yet i always want to start with the screen size now we all have our wants i want that but what is really practical for your application what size screen can you fit on your boat and what size screen can you see well i like to look for the minimum number we can deal with when making this selection now that doesn't mean we won't buy something bigger but what is the smallest unit we can handle for some a seven inch unit might be big enough while others may have a hard time seeing that size screen so a nine inch unit would work as their minimum now on the other end of it if you can fit any screen size onto your boat you don't need a maximum number our budget will determine that for us but if you know that nothing bigger than a 10 inch unit will fit in your boat you can set that as your maximum size regardless of your budget just to help eliminate other options next we have to decide on a budget what can you afford to pay for a unit now i'm going to give you some tips at the end of this video to ensure you get the biggest screen and best deal for your budget but for now let's look at the maximum number you're willing to spend you can be anywhere from about two hundred and fifty dollars to seven thousand dollars for a single unit today and these days it's easy to go north of ten thousand dollars if you're going to be doing a full system on your boat so check out these guidelines for you to give you an idea of what size screen you can get for the amount of dollars you need to spend let's say we decided on a nine inch minimum screen size and we have a budget of fifteen hundred dollars now if we had a five hundred dollar budget chances are we aren't going to get a nine inch screen for that price we then have to decide are we going to go to a smaller screen or find a way to afford that larger unit so this means using credit or more credit or delaying your purchase until you have the money to go for that larger screen my suggestion is to not sacrifice the screen size but figure out how you can make it work with your budget to get the screen size you need we've all heard i wish i got the bigger screen but i doubt you've ever heard this this screen is just too big for me so between the screen size selection and the budget we've narrowed things down a lot that overwhelming feeling of a list of units a mile long is now just shortened to a manageable number but we can still narrow things down further with the following decisions and considerations you can make here we have to determine what features are required and what we can live without what mapping do we need what sonar views do we need what are the networking needs radar autopilot trolling motor control digital switching engine interfacing the list is never ending but write out a list of everything you want the unit to be able to do and we'll refer back to this list later for example a multi-species angler might say i need side imaging down imaging chirp sonar good mapping system for several regions and the ability to network with another unit trolling motor support would be nice and live mapping as well but i can live without the last two if need be so now we have a good idea of what we can fit in the boat what we can afford and what we want in the unit we're in a great position now to begin shopping and comparing units do you have a brand preference this is really nothing more than a personal preference thing i'm going to let you in on one of the biggest secrets in the industry today about the different sonar brands so whether it's lowrance hummingbird garmin or raymarine they're all good period one brand isn't so far and away better than the next that you should buy brand a over brand b yes there are certain things that each brand does better than the next but overall as a whole they're all very reliable and feature packed units today what i will say about brands though is you want to find out what their local representation is like in your area while many of the companies are global companies they all have regional reps and service facilities before you buy call up the companies ask retailers in your area that are unbiased for their opinion of each brand and how each brand handles its own service in my area in southern ontario raymarine really excels in their after sales service they have reps that will travel out to your boat if you have an issue that can't be resolved by calling their 1-800 line if you're undecided on a brand when you go into a store look for unbiased salespeople everybody will have their preference and you should too but if you're only being shown a humminbird because the guy you got loves humminbird that isn't fair humminbird may have the most to offer him but for you a garmin might be a better choice same goes when you're talking to friends or other anglers for advice like you know that guy ricky in your bass club who got screwed by lowrance back in 2006 because he got unlucky and his lms 332 stopped working six months past the warranty date and he had to pay for a replacement and he'll never buy lowrance again because of it while ricky things may have changed 15 years since then another thing about how all the different brands position themselves with the products they offer you have good units you have better units and you have the best units so look at lowrance as an example they have their good hook reveal their better elite ti2 and their best hds live knowing that all brands position themselves this way we can save some money with the better option rather than the best option if that unit meets all of our requirements the next three decisions i want to look at are what i call basic decisions all anglers need to make do you need a unit on your boat that can network or can you get away with just a stand-alone unit now this is going to be dependent on your boat and how you're fishing bass boats walleye boats multi-species boats they all need units that can network a center console boat that has multiple displays on a single dash they should have units that network as well however a center console boat that has just a single unit doesn't need networking small aluminum fishing boats that'll only ever have one unit on them bow riders that type of thing they can get away with standalone units so what this means is we can usually get away by buying their mid-tier better unit rather than having to spend their high-end money for their best option i said at the beginning sonar power isn't something people really pay attention to anymore but there are some people that should if you fish anything deeper than 80 feet consistently in fresh or salt water i'd recommend going with a unit that has at least 4000 watts peak to peak power i'd also recommend that the unit you get has a 600 watt transducer you'll find some manufacturers are packing 250 watt transducers with their unit that is sufficient for the times when you're bass fishing but if you're a multi-species angler and down rig the great lakes for salmon and trout 50 of the time when you're on the water that 250 watt transducer isn't going to cut it mapping options right now in this industry that is something that is really up in the air there is a big shift taking place with mapping in the industry garmin's purchase of navionics which is arguably the biggest and best mapping source for north america has really changed the landscape navionics was an independent company that worked on lowrance hummingbird and raymarine pretty much everything but garmin well now those three brands are working on their own high quality mapping they don't like the idea of you having to use a garmin map in a lowrance unit right now you need to investigate the best mapping option for your region it might be a lake master chart which works in hummingbird units or cmap may offer the best options for your area which has recently just been purchased by navico the parent company of lowrance this is an area you should investigate thoroughly because mapping is one of the biggest reasons you're buying a gps unit this is also dependent on the region in north america you're in or the world for that matter for example if you're a bass fisherman in south africa you're crazy not to buy a fish tech chart and that means you need a lowrance unit in addition to the basics of networking sonar and gps at this point we can review radars autopilots or anything else you consider to be a feature you can't live without if you're in the northwest in foggy conditions most of the time you may consider radar to be a basic need everything i've talked about so far i classify as a decision we need to make once the decisions have been made we can move on to considerations these two considerations are what we are going to consider next and they go together that's add-ons and future plans add-ons are defined as external modules or sensors that can be added to the main head unit or the multi-function display this is where we now go back to our want list and see if we can find a unit that meets as many of those requirements as possible so many options exist today from side scan modules and transducers to real-time sonar 360 imaging radars and autopilots augmented reality heading sensors and drone control yeah you can control a drone with your fish finder today now i can't go into detail on all these add-ons for this video but use your want list to guide you to those units that can handle the majority of what your needs are now these add-ons go along with our next topic as well future plans what do we want to add down the road the beauty today is we can buy the display now and add the other features down the road if the unit we buy is capable and don't look too far down the road either i wouldn't plan for much more than five years in advance because chances are by then you'll need a new head unit anyway what you plan to do in the future should be considered if you are just buying one unit right now but want to have more on your system eventually or if there's already one unit on the boat and you're adding a second one if you're outfitting your boat with all new electronics you don't need to put as much thought into this but let me give you scenarios you can consider let's just say you bought a used boat that has a lowrance hds12 gen 3 of the console and a helix 9 g3n mega si at the bow now you want to upgrade one of them so that they can network and share information obviously lowrance will not network with hummingbird so we have to pick one brand to go with now you also plan to buy an ipilot link trolling motor down the road so you can use that with the lake master charting because you found that to be the best charting for the lakes you fish so it wouldn't make sense to go ahead and buy an hds live unit even though it will network with the 5 year old gen 3 that's already on the boat neither unit will work with the ipilot link motor it makes sense to buy the helix g4n unit because of your plans for the boat when is it the best time to buy a unit so you get the best price from what i've seen over the last few years the time of year to get the best deal is around black friday i've seen units at their cheapest during this time now let's say the unit that you wanted to pick up didn't go on sale for black friday how do we get it cheaper well the next best thing would be to buy it at a boat show so that's my first answer the second thing is to try and buy it as a package to get the price down it's going to be hard to talk anybody down on a single unit but if you're buying maybe a unit upgrade and a trolling motor add in a power pole or an onboard charger something like that you can ask for a package price discount now it's best to do this during a sale as well when you're already getting a great price you may not get as large a discount as when the unit's at its full price but if you're spending five thousand dollars even a two percent discount is still 100 bucks back to you generally speaking if a retailer has multiple promotions going on at the same time they usually only let you use one so what you want to do is combine a retailer deal with a manufacturer's deal try and buy when the unit's on sale but there's also a manufacturer rebate available for the product you're buying usually in the spring manufacturers have rebates to go along with the boat shows these rebates are usually small but 150 bucks back is still 150 bucks back in your pocket one trick you can do to save some money on the purchase price is to buy a unit without a transducer for the cases when you don't need one most manufacturers will offer the same models without a transducer that they do with so for situations where you may have a trolling motor with a built-in transducer or you're going to go out and buy a higher quality chirp transducer you can then buy that head unit without a transducer because chances are you aren't going to need two this will usually knock down the price of the unit close to the value of the transducer here are a couple tips for saving money after you've made your purchase first make the effort to learn how to install it yourself at 80 to 120 bucks an hour in labor rates from most installers you can easily spend another 500 on the install if you have some basic skills you can do this yourself all the manufacturers provide great installation instructions with their products you need to know how to use drill pull some wires through your boat and some basic 12-volt electrical skills and then you can do this yourself i'm sure if you don't know how to do any of those things you can probably check it out on youtube and find some good videos to help you out if you do the installs yourself use some common sense think things through in detail have a plan for your install to help make it go smoother the other benefit of doing the install yourself is knowing how it was done in case there's ever a problem you need to troubleshoot now secondly another way to save money after your purchase is to look at what the companies offer on the products that you've bought as far as the warranty goes remember according to ricky from your bass club who had that lms 332 fail six months past the warranty they build them just to die after the warranty's up most units will come with a one year warranty but many will come with a two year warranty lowrance hds units and most of their ethernet devices have a two year warranty garmin gps map products and raymarine axiom products they also do as well so that extra year of insurance could pay off for you in the long run i've got one more tip for you but let's recap first first thing we need to do is decide on the screen size and budget then your wants and needs at that point go shopping because you're in good shape to get a unit that's suited for you and how you're going to use it this is my biggest tip for you when you go to buy your electronics don't get sold something get what you want and don't let somebody else decide for you it's your boat and you're the one using the product in the end once you make your decision on the unit you want stick with it don't let yourself get talked out of what you decided on what i will tell you though is ask some questions about the unit you decided on first ask about the unit one above the one you're interested in if you decided on a helix eight ask the sales rep you're dealing with about the helix nine maybe they can give you a better deal on the helix 9 for some reason or maybe there's some rebates on the helix 9 10 12 and 15 but on the 5 7 and 8 they're excluded from those rebates so you might actually be able to get the helix 9 for only a little bit more than the helix 8 and still stay within your budget hopefully this video gave you a bunch of tips so you're better prepared the next time you go and shop for some electronics please be sure to like the video if it helped you out and subscribe to my channel for more content like these videos right here [Music] you

Channel: Lawren Wetzel

Views: 48,664

Rating: 4.8928189 out of 5

Keywords: how to choose a fish finder, how to choose a good fish finder, best fish finder/gps combo, best fishfinder gps combo under 2000, how to choose the right fish finder, tips for buying gps, tips for buying fish finder, Lowrance, garmin, raymarine, humminbird, Lowrance vs humminbird, garmin vs humminbird, Lowrance vs garmin, marine electronics, how to buy marine electronics, best price fish finder, fishfinder, get the best price, how to pick the right fish finder, sonar, graph, sounder

Id: sdt8tf9TmYk

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Sun Jan 17 2021