7 Reasons to Use Garmin Marine Electronics
If you’re in the market for new marine electronics, or if the thought has crossed your mind, do yourself a huge favor and take a look at Garmin’s expansive product offerings. With three distinct product lines depending on your budget and needs, the most important things stay consistent across all of our fish finders and chartplotters – reliable, high-quality products, that are easy-to-use and provide you with the clearest sonar on the water.
Best of all, the user-experience is fantastic due to flawless integration with other Garmin products, and our marine support team is happy to help out and answer your questions, should you ever run into any issues.
Here are seven reasons that make buying Garmin marine electronics an easy choice.
1. Quality + Reliability
Having high-quality and reliable marine electronics keeps you on the water longer, so you can keep your mind on what’s important – catching fish and cashing a check.
For the past two years, Garmin pro team anglers have been running the GPSMAP 7600xsv series chartplotters and are thoroughly impressed with how reliable they’ve been.
Andy Morgan, 2016 FLW Tour Angler of the Year, had this to say:
“I run four Garmin units and I’ve put them through some of the roughest conditions possible. They’ve been in downpours and even submerged from spearing waves in big water. Sometimes I put the covers on, sometimes I don’t. After launching my boat, all I have to do is hit the power button and my units come on and stay on until I’m done for the day.
In some events, if you get out there and your electronics don’t work, you’re done and have just lost a lot of money. When you buy something that’s high quality and turns on when you need it to, that’s a BIG plus.”
READ: Why Andy Morgan Switched to Garmin
2. Great Customer Service
We listen to our customers and care about what you have to say.
Whether you’re having problems figuring out a certain setting, need help troubleshooting, or simply have a recommendation on how we can improve our software and products – we listen.
Our engineers and marine product support team truly take it to heart. At the end of every season, we sit down with our pros and ask them what they want to see for next year. Our software engineers work diligently to have these changes rolled out for our big software update at the beginning of each year.
This year, some of our biggest changes were: Multiple Depth Range Shading, expanded VIRB integration with Wi-Fi-enabled chartplotters, and Quickdraw Contours.
See what Bill Dance has to say about Garmin’s Customer Service:
3. Panoptix LiveVü Forward Sonar
Since Garmin Panoptix was announced in early 2015, it has changed the landscape of competitive fishing. Tour-level pros, guides and weekend warriors are seeing the advantages that Panoptix gives them on the water, and it’s paying off for them in a major way. This game-changing technology has been a difference-maker for many top finishes for our pro team anglers.
Think about it this way – One fish (or two) that you wouldn’t have otherwise caught could be the difference between winning Angler of the Year, winning a tournament, or even cashing a check in a tournament versus not cashing a check.
READ: Six Reasons You Need Panoptix Sonar
4. Clearest Sonar on the Water with “Real” CHIRP Sonar
CHIRP Sonar affords you the ability to see underwater in greater detail than ever before. With Garmin’s range of affordable all-in-one CHIRP transducers, which offer SideVü, ClearVü and traditional 2D CHIRP sonars, you’ll get the ultimate one-two punch and be able to find fish and structure much easier than with non-CHIRP sonar, due to far better target separation.
Image Courtesy of: Troy Rogers
READ: Why CHIRP Sonar is a Necessity
5. Easy-to-Use
With Garmin marine electronics, complex doesn’t mean complicated. Garmin units are packed with a lot of complex features, in an intuitive and user-friendly interface.
To satisfy the needs of both freshwater and saltwater anglers, our CHIRP-ready GPSMAP 7600xsv series touchscreen chartplotters are loaded with tons of power and even more features.
The echoMAP CHIRP series units are available with either freshwater (US or Canada) or saltwater mapping, depending on the model you select. This is our mid-range push-button unit that is compatible with Panoptix (7-inch models and up) and comes bundled with a CHIRP transducer.
Lastly, our STRIKER series consists of entry-level fishfinders with built-in GPS and are bundled with CHIRP transducers. There are no mapping capabilities, but navigating to your fishing spots is easy, as you can save your previous tracks and waypoints. You won’t find this much bang for your buck in any other entry-level fishfinder on the market.
Our simple user interface makes Garmin units easy to use and easy to learn. See an option you don’t want? Simply customize your menus to remove the features you may never use. Don’t be afraid to make the jump to Garmin out of fear of learning how to use a new unit. You’ll be glad you did.
READ: Best Fishfinder Under $500
6. LakeVü HD and Quickdraw Contours Mapping
We have a dedicated fleet of bathymetric survey boats and crews that work year-round to bring you our proprietary LakeVü HD Ultra mapping. LakeVü HD Ultra’s 99 MaxDef lakes and counting, provides Garmin owners the ability to own the most detailed maps on the water.
New for 2016 is Quickdraw Contours. This free and easy-to-use software instantly creates HD fishing maps with 1-foot contours. It’ll even improve upon existing maps!
When you’re finished mapping the areas you want, choose to keep them private or upload them to the Quickdraw Community on Garmin Connect.
READ: Quickdraw Contours Q&A
7. Flawless Integration with a Massive Suite of Garmin Products
When you purchase a Garmin Wi-Fi-enabled chartplotter, it opens up doors to integrate with many existing Garmin products.
– Have full control of your VIRB X, VIRB XE and VIRB Ultra 30 action cameras. By connecting them to your chartplotter, you will gain availability to G-Metrix data such as water depth, water temperature and boat speed to overlay on your video and add entertainment value. You can even re-live the catch by playing back a video shot with VIRB on your chartplotter!
– Looking down at your chartplotter to check water depth and temperature is a thing of the past. Garmin Nautix In-view display attaches directly to your sunglasses and streams NMEA 2000 data.
– Whether you have a compatible Garmin chartplotter or not, our fēnix 3 and quatix 3 smartwatches are a staple accessory for anyone who loves the outdoors. You can even start/stop your Garmin VIRB! If you are a luxury watch buff, you’re definitely going to want to check out our new fēnix Chronos.
READ: Freshwater Fishing with Garmin quatix 3
Next time you’re looking to buy new marine electronics, check out what Garmin has to offer. You’ll be happy you did!
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