I've had Garmin and Humminbird combo units, IMO I'd rather have a bigger black and white screen than the smaller color screen.

I liked the GPS on both Garmin and Humminbird.

One nice feature I've seen on some GPS's is where the red and green channel marker poles and bouys are loaded in the GPS map. That is a feature I want on my next unit.

I never really use the water temperature readings, so that feature is kind of just a bell and whistle IMO.

I like having different alarms on the unit, such as: low battery alarm, shallow water alarm, almost out of fried chicken alarm etc. etc.

I really thought the sonar was easier to read on the Humminbird and had more layout/display/sonar settings.

The GPS on the Garmin is pretty Awesome especially with the Bluechart? chip

Every Lowrance unit I've played with on friends boat's seemed hard to use...

 

Don't have experience with Hummingbird but I have a garmin unit and a lowrance unit side by side on the boat now. I would say buy as big of a screen Garmin unit as your budget allows.

 

Either will do just fine. Just compare apples to apples when it comes to the depth finder and pick the cheapest. I do think the Garmin looks better though.

I have a lowrance eagle gps and a garmin depth finder. Still on the Lowrance and on the second garmin depth finder. Both are low grade.

 

I've had Garmin and Humminbird. I had no complaints about the Garmin, but I LOVE the Humminbird. It has the channel markers loaded in the maps as described above.
I was trying to decide between a Humminbird and a Lowrance wen I bought my current unit. Garmin did not offer many of the features that I was looking for, so it was not even a consideration. I played with both in the store and liked the menus and button layout on the Humminbird better. The Lowrance was a little gimmicky. I also liked that the Humminbird was built right here in Alabama. And is owned by Johnson Companies. They are still a US, family owned business. They also own Ocean Kayak ( I have one) and Minn Kota (I own one). I like to support local business and family owned businesses when I can.

 

I've had a Garmin GPS and loved it. I now have a Lowrance HDS-7 and the fish finder and side-scan are GREAT, the GPS is not user friendly, but I don't use it much either.

Jim

 

I'm sure many will say Garmin, but I have had nothing but good luck with the Lowrance products.

 

The Garmin GPS is intuitive, not so for the Lowrance. I went through the same decision process for a combo unit from either Garmin, Lowrance, and Raymarine; and chose the Garmin 740S for ease of use, functionality, and price. Happy with my choice.

And I have another Lowrance GPS on the boat that is just a level above dreadful.

 

I have garmin and humminbird nothing compares to my humminbird love it

 

Have you considered one of the side imaging Humminbird models? I have one and love it. Gives you a whole different view of what's under and around you.

 

got a humminbird 587hd combo love it. gps is deadon and transducer is a sealed unit unlike the garmin leakducer. garmin wants u to buy waypoint program whereas humminbird is free. only thing i would put a garmin in is my trashcan.

 

Garmin GPS is much easier to use.