Garmin 192C vs Standard Horizon CP155C ?

[Doc of the Bay]

Which would you all recomend. I am updating my electronics on my 25.5' SeaCat. Pulling out the old Cytrek and purchasing either the Garmin 192C or the Standard Horizon CP155C. I fish 30 to 40 miles off the Louisiana coast and also the inland bays. Thanks in advance for your advice. Doc of the Bay

[rocksandblues]

i have a standard horizon 175. 6" screen. i really like it. holds two c-map chips and can be inputed with all kinds of accessories such as sounder black box and cameras.

the little joystick is real easy/intuitive to use. let me know if i can answer any specific questions. I can not directly compare with Garmin. But i have had eagle, lowrance.

[10%more]

I had an older Standard Horizon. I think it was a 150 model. Sold the boat. Bought something else for the new boat. Mistake. Sure miss the Standard Horizon.

[NauticalSmiles]

I switched from a Garmin 276c to the Standard 175c last year. I love the 175! It's fast, scrolling around is instant, instead of the garmin, which I found slow, zooming is also WAY faster on the 175. I really prefer the joystick on the 175 over the rocker pad on the garmins - it just works much better for me.

The screen is better, especially in the daylight.

I like the collision feature (not sure what it's actually called), but it scans the area ahead of your boat (you determine how far ahead) for shallow water or obstructions that are marked on the map. It's almost as good as forward facing sonar (better since the forward sonar I've seen doesn't work well in my lake).

The map detail for me was the real motivator. The garmin bluecharts sucked for my area. They had many of the marinas listed, but none by name. That made it hard to meet others at specific marinas when I didn't have the name or location (the pink anchor mark on the gps doesn't do squat if you don't know which one to head to).

The new Max maps are even better! For my lakes (I'm in Ontario and boat in Lake Simcoe to Georgian Bay) the cmap had the best detail, by far.

Customer support from cmap is also much better than garmin. I'm able to update my NT+ map that I bought last year to the max map for $30 (plus the club cmap membership of $80).

Garmin screwed me last year when I lost my bluecharts CD and asked them to ship another. They said my version was the old version (6 instead of 6.5) and that I was screwed. I still have 2 unlock codes for 6 that I cannot use! Anybody want them?

I also like the base unit on the 175 - quick release, no wires.

The only downsides to the 175 are that I can't power it on without being on the boat - shouldn't be a problem usually but I wanted to update the 175 to support the cmap max and had to wait until I pulled the shrinkwrap off the boat last week. The other thing is that the Standard Horizon plotters don't have a track back feature. They do plot a track to tell you where you've been, but you can't make that track a route (at least not on the old software - maybe on the new). I really did like that from the garmin.