I have owned a few of both, and they are both great motors. BUT, and a big but, is they each have their purpose, and absolutely suck at the other purpose.
If you are bass fishing, or should I say bass style fishing, where you are always on the trolling motor as you move down the shoreline, and will be in shallower water around cover, using boat position to your advantage to cast around cover, absolutely positively get a cable steer. You will kick yourself silly using a powerdrive to try and keep a good boat position while you flip and pitch a dock, or are working through a stumpfield.
Now, if you are primarily fishing open water, such as you would striper fishing, the powerdrive is definitely the way to go. It gives you the opportunity to control the TM from anywhere in the boat, which is real nice when you have 3 downlines off each side of the boat. If you troll with the trolling motor (what a novel concept), the powerdrive really shines. The powerdrive still gives you relatively good control of the boat when casting in open water, such as when chasing a very active school of hybrids, but when you get into tighter spaces, and need the boat positioning to be perfect to cast around certain cover, it is real annoying.
I will say this, if you get a cable steer motor, a tray for it is worth it's weight in gold. I won't ever have another cable steer trolling motor without one.
