Practical Sailor's gear and boat reviews take the guesswork out of your buying decisions.

Volume 29
Number 16
August 15, 2003

Monochrome GPS Plotter-Sounders

Need a sounder and a chartplotter but don’t have the space or the money for two separate units? A monochrome combination unit might be the answer. Pickin's are slim: either Garmin or Lowrance.

All of the screens were easy to see in direct sunlight. It was under cover where we saw major differences in screen quality. From left to right: the Garmin GPSMAP 168 Sounder, the Garmin GPSMAP 188 Sounder, and the Lowrance LMS-320DF.

Type the words "combo unit" into an Internet search engine and you'll come up with quite a few responses. For sale: TV/VCR/DVD combo units, fax-printer combo units, washer-dryer combo units, even cell phones that can take digital photographs. Now more than ever, people want to kill two birds with one stone.

A single piece of electronics that merges two or more functions not only saves space at the helm but also can improve the usefulness of the product. We're thinking of electronic chartplotters with radar overlays, or split screens that display the contours of the bottom on the right and your heading on a chart on the left. …

Subscriber Login
Purchase selection, or begin your FREE 14-day trial subscription to practical-sailor.com.
Click Here to download Adobe Acrobat

Say Yes to 14 Days FREE of Practical Sailor

Subscribe NOW and get instant access and all the benefits of Practical Sailor online FREE for 14 days!

Email:

First Name:

Last Name:

Address 1:

Address 2:

City:

State Zip: