Advice on simple electronics for Freedom 255

[capemaygrady]

Hi - My father-in-law just bought a Freedom 255 and we need to pick out electronics. We are multi-purpose boaters - tooling around in the back bays, crabbing, water skiing, 5-6 fishing trips per year 20 miles out, etc. Here is what we are looking for:

1. A simple, easy to use chart. We do not want something that is over-engineered with a million options we will never use.
2. A depth finder that works on soft bottoms and at speed
3. A decent fish finder.

The simpler the better, we would go with 2 units if simpler than an all in one. big displays.

Any advice?

 

[Capt. Ed]

If by simple you mean simple to use all the current name brand units are pretty good and you can pick a chart that provides the detail you want. Since I have Garmin, I'll recommend their stuff starting with a GPSMap 740. It's already preloaded with a good chart and has a built in fishfinder. All you need to add is a transducer and you're ready to go. It's also ready for radar with the addition or a radome.

A new version is coming, GPSMap 741XS, but I'm not sure it's been released yet. It offers a lot more features, but if simple is better, you may not need them.

For your boat, I recommend either a thru hull or in hull transducer. I tried a transom mount and could never get it to read well on plane. I went with the M260 in hull and it works great. The B164 thru hull is also a good choice.

If you want easily read screens, two 740's should fit your helm and offer redundancy in the unlikey event one failed.

You should at least look at the larger Garmin units. While a little more complicated to install, they are just as easy to use and with the single large screens, very readable. The 7212 is a 12 inch screen and is preloaded with charts. You must add a depth finder to this unit, but the new GSD 24 depth finder is a great product. It uses the same transducers mentioned above.

Best advice is to go to West Marine and play with all the units they have and see what you like best.

 

[zimm]

Simple? Touch screen.

New garmins on the way in April/may.

Check out lowrance HDS touch available in 7, 9, and 12"

Simrad NSS8 or bigger too.