Lowrance Elite 7 dsi gold review...Beware!

[moemoe]

I had done quite bit of researching this past winter for a new fishfinder plotter and basically narrowed done my search to a hds 7 or elite 7. I do a mixture of soft water fishing, but mostly lake ontario and gbay. Pixel count was higher on the elite 7 than the hds, and rms output was the same, and both worked as chart plotter and could handle a gold chip, and both had broadband technology which would help on lake ontario. I did not plan on any additional add ons or networking, so i figured the elite 7 would cover all of my needs and the "gold" chip was a nice bonus. the positive first, Unit works great as a sonar, easy to use, but an "exit" button would be much nicer. I trolled lake ontario and was able to mark my cannon balls down to 175ft with the 50 degree cone. The chartplotter is a different story though, I uploaded the ''gold" chip to the unit and scrolled over lake ontario and was extremely dissappointed with the chart function on the navionics chart. Contour lines are marked in 40 to 50 feet sections, ie the niagara bar shows 4 contour lines going from 45 to 200ft,and there is very poor accuracy in the depth number listings as well. I assumed this was a mistake, so i brought back the unit to Fishing world, who were great in working with me to solve the problem. Ended up trying the actual navionics gold chip as opposed to the lowrance "gold" bundle and no difference in clarity of charts. Ended up calling both navionics and lowrance/navico and the problem is not in the chips, but in the software. The software for the units is not complete yet as per lowrance and therefore unable to fully read the chip. This was after uploading the new software update which will "now enable 1ft contour lines on navionics". Needless to say I am extremely dissappointed in this and feel that I have a useless navionics chip/function after sheeling out 850 bucks after tax. Lowrance said they are trying to work on another software upgrade to solve the problem but no tentative release date. Great. My advice, stay away, until the bugs are sorted out.

Edited June 26, 2013 by moemoe

[Fisherman]

Hopefully they come up with an update..at their cost. Lowrance used to be great right out of the box, I think it falls out of the box now.

[moemoe]

put the same post up on muskie outdoor first and it was deleted.....hmmmmm

[Barneybass]

My buddy just bought this unit this spring and his seems to be fine. Maybe it's just becasue he's fishing the kawartha region?

[fishindevil]

If you get the hot maps chip it has a lot better contour lines in 1-5ft increments and the detail is better !!! ???? Did they ask you that option

[moemoe]

spoke with lowrance again today and issue is not with the chips, but the unit needs a software patch....how or when that is fixed to be determined

Edited June 27, 2013 by moemoe

[RichNavionics]

There is a software update on the Elite7 that without it won't read Navionics charts in any detail. Here is the link. http://www.lowrance.com/en-US/Software-Updates/Elite-7/. Transfer the update to a blank SD/MSD card. Insert it into your plotter, then power it up.

"All GPS enabled Elite-7 units will now support Navionics mapping content with 1ft contours. In addition to enhanced contour content, we have increased the resolution of Navionics content when zoomed in close."