Hey Swompa,

I have that exact unit on my boat - they were for sale in BCF for $799 AUD when I got it. It's my first GPS/fish finder (first boat actually) but it works great for me. Really bright and clear screen, easy to flick between features (bottom sounding, fish finder, GPS). The bottom sounding (black and white) is super detailed, showing up amazing details on some of the wrecks that I've been over and the fish finder works a treat too.

Only downside is the NMEA functionality is a bit limited, it will not show up engine stats or anything like that, as far as I can tell. It depends if that's something that you want - the HDS Lowrance units are the next level up and have all of that NMEA functionality, but are quite a higher price!

I'd definitely recommend one!

 Have you had a play with one in store somewhere? I found that they were very slow to switch between screens/menus and gain adjustment to be very slow.  The reason lots of places are doing these cheap is they started out with the 50/200 and 83/200 Elite 7's, then they brought out the HDI units with D/scan and they have recently released the Chirp units so people are trying to shuffle out the older less featured units.  I think the Simrad NSS7's are a much better unit, but they are probably twice the outlay. Also the Elite series you cannot network them at a later date.

Bryan

 I also have one and it shuts itself off from time to time, mostly when its hot weather. Been over the connections a couple of times so I dont believe they are to blame. To be honest I havent really worked out how to use it fully but when trolling for Salmon recently it definately picked them up showing dark arches.

Other than that I would not relay on them to find you a fish, or is it me!!!

Just to clarify - I have the HDI version....

 Thanks guys. Helpful information.

 Hey I am upgrading my sounder later this year and plan to spend some $$$$ .  My choice is the simrad nss7 (combo) bundle for about $1500.