Garmin 2006c with GSD 20 sounder or Furuno 1850 with built in sounder?

[Sandpiper John]

I'm looking at these two units for my father's boat. All his fishing is within ten miles of the coast and 95% of the time along the beach looking for stripers, blues and weakfish. I know the sounder on the furuno works great but the screen isn't as nice as the garmin. I like the garmin plotter and screen alot better but don't know how well the GSD20 blackbox sounder performs. Is anybody using the GSD20 and if so how is it performing? Do you think it will get the job done? My father is just a casual fisherman so the sounder doesn't have to be as good as the furuno, but I don't want to waste his money on something that doesn't work.

Thanks John

[bay-wolf]

I used the GSD 20 with the Garmin 182c ane it worked out just fine. For the price, I don't think you can get a better color fishfinder.

[JJC]

I've been thinking about the same thing as I'm starting to look for electronics for the boat I'm buying. I spent some time playing around with the Garmin this weekend at West Marine and was impressed. Very easy to use, and I like the way you can setup any of the screens with just about any information you would like to display. They didn't have the furuno to compare though. I think I'm sold on the Garmin as the GPS, but trying to decide now if I should get the GSD 20 sounder or a separate sounder. My current thinking is get the sounder on the Garmin and go with the bigger 2010 model so there's plenty of room to display the info, but interested in hearing if anyone has experience with the sounder.

Thanks,
John

[Major Woods]

I have the 2006 (B&W) with the GSD20. Great pc of hardware, I am very happy with the purchase. I can pick up the stripers on the finder just prior to hookups while drifting eels over the reefs.
I run the 2006 in split screan (GPS map & Sounder) and each screan is comparable in size to single GPS or FF units.