I'll do some checking. I'd get the HDS 7 Gen2 Touch. The only thing you'd need to upgrade so side scan is a transducer which you can get down the road. Transducer is $249. The HB units don't hold up so well in SW. A fair amount of complaints on THT concerning corrosion etc in the HB connectors. In freshwater, great units. I'd still have gone Lowrance. I've stood by them both in WM and while it was a 1st generation Lowrance, the screen images were considerably better and quite noticeable.
SI is a GREAT tool used when used in the appropriate setting. Expecting SI to work in 800' of water is akin to using a sledge hammer to drive a finishing nail into that $500 cabinet door you are hanging in your kitchen. They'll work great when used in those depths up to about 150' deep give or take. 150' and under, they're the bomb and clearly show structure right down to 2' depths and you can figure on about 150' out from each side of the boat and yes, outstanding images in saltwater. If you don't mount the transducer correctly or have the wrong settings, it's going to look like crap. Using traditional sonar in say 6' of water is like pissing in the wind (unless that's your thing lol) and useless. You can mount the LSS-2 transducer (SI transducer) to your jackplate. In DEEP DEEP water say 800' give or take, using a 1kw thru hull transducer with CHIRP is the way to go on these and the Simrad units which are basically the same unit and both made by Navico.
In our application (fishing the flats) SI is an awesome tool from my research and I'm here to tell you, I'd NEVER spend that kind of cash without months of tireless research. A friend in South Africa is a beta tester for Navico and has tested these thoroughly as has another friend in Norway who has 3 of these and also the Simrad units on two of his boats and uses these in 1000' ft of water routinely. He's also a beta tester for Navico. I picked their brains over so much it isn't funny :mrgreen:
I'll see what I can do for prices on the HDS 7 Gen 2 Touch for ya.
