Humminbird 898c SI Combo 7-Inch Waterproof Marine GPS and Chartplotter with Sounder | Marine Electronics

I purchased this in August 2010 excellent delivery time, The 898cSI is great sonar unit wished I had purchased earlier. My one recomendation would be to study the manual and fimilarize your self with settings and operation in the simulation mode this will save you lots of time on the water. Don't forget to register with Hummingbird I received my unit and there were updates already available which I updated as soon as I installed the unit. Make sure to reset defaults before and after updates are installed.

Controls are intuitive - easily used with very little instruction. The displays are clear and easy to read. The detail on the side and down imaging is impeccable. I trolled into an area with multiple stick-ups, looked at my down-image and it appeared just like a forest below me!

The transom-mount transducer cracked after our first use on a wooded KY lake - even with the break-away mount in place. I have already ordered a new one. If this continues, I will downgrade my rating. I mounted the transducer as high as functionally possible on the transom, right at the idle-speed waterline, so it should not have cracked that easily.

Overall this is an excellent unit. I would suggest you go out to the internet and extensively research the use of side and down imaging, as the instructions that came with the unit were mostly sales pitches and not practical applications of the new technology. That said, I will still buy another Humminbird when the time arises.

I've had this unit for nearly two months now. The side imaging is amazing! It can go out to 250 feet on either side of the boat. The shallower you are, the less side range you get, so at about 40 feet, I get all 250 feet to either side.

I found may new wrecks in the Tampa area, and one of them actually looks like a patina photograph when looking at it with side imaging. Absolutely amazing!

The video out means that you can hook this thing up to any TV, I tried it, and it works. what comes out of the video out connection is a replica of the screen, I wish I could select what to display on it, such as the map, sonar or side imaging, but that's not the case. I'm thinking of hooking this thing up to a 14-16" flat screen to get better details.

The detail of the side imaging is amazing, I can clearly see abandoned crab traps at the bottom.

The basic map that comes with it is, hmm.. not as good as expected, so I shelled out the $200 for the Navionics Platinum card, and now it's like using Google Earth with detailed bottom contours.

having this unit on my boat actually makes me glad that my Lowrance fell apart!

Two drawbacks, hence the 4 stars. There are preset buttons on the front (3 or 4) for quick access to pre-programmed screens, I could use a few more, and the screens (i.e. half map/half sonar) cannot be mixed and matched, you get what you get so If I wanted a screen broken down to sonar and map on one side, and side imaging on the other, I'm basically out of luck. The unit is software upgradable, so hopefully Hummingbird will make that functionality available someday.