Lowerance HDS or Garmin 546?

[jbuie1]

Which is the better of the two? I am looking to purchase one soon. I want to use it on my 19' skiff and as gps on larger boat. I want good cartography, good sounder, and maybe will turn on the satellite.

[middleofnowhere]

I have the HDS and overall am happy with it. There were some bugs with the units because they are new and revolutionary. Most of the bugs have been worked out and Lowrance puts fairly regular software updates on their site available for free download.
The broadband sounder on the HDS pretty much has no peer in the smaller machines. With the ability to add "structure scan" at a later date, thay should also weigh heavily on your decision.
Also, HDS can use Navionics charts. If you fish lakes, there are no better charts available. I believe Garmin is not Navionics compatible. The "insight" charts that come with the HDS units are pretty darned good also. You can find a lot of examples of screen shots on this site by doing a search.
I have my HDS flush mounted in my fiberglass console (under a fiberglass hard top) and do not need an external antannae. I have never lost a satellite. This was a huge selling point for me, cause one less cable and instrument sticking out of my hardtop is a good thing.
A budy of mine uses a 440s, it is a nice little machine. He raves about mine when he fishes with me, but I'm not sure if it's just because I have a bigger and easier to see screen.

[Reel Draggin' Tackle]

http://reeldraggintackle.com/images/...n/100_4004.JPG

[Captain Stanman]

If you are a fisherman, its hard to beat the quality of the imaging that you get with an HDS unit. It magnifies up to 8X, with some amazing bottom shots.

[NYC Wharf Rat]

HDS all the way. Contrary to Blue Water Pirate's proclamations, the Garmin fish finding technology is garbage. HDS uses the broadband sounding technology which really makes better use of the transom mount transducer and throws less noise into the water, on a skiff like yours it's a no-brainer.