Best Sonar in the $300-$400 Range?

[jrcw]

My old Humminbird finally marked its last fish and it's time for a new sonar. I haven't bought one in a while and I'm not entirely sure what I should be looking for as far as features go. I will be using it on northern Alberta lakes, primarily Lesser Slave Lake, and will mostly be targetting walleye. I fish with a handheld Garmin 60CX, so I don't think I really need a combo unit (not to mention that from what I understand the digital map options for Canada are pretty limited unless you're fishing in southern Ontario). I would like something with decent resolution and preferably a water temp feature. I've somewhat narrowed it down to:

1. Lowrance X-52 for $279 at Wholesale

http://www.wholesalesports.com/storefront/home/fishing/fish-finders/sonar/x-52-sonar/prod224723.html

2. Lowrance X-96 for $299 at Wholesale

http://www.wholesalesports.com/storefront/home/fishing/fish-finders/sonar/x-96-sonar/prod224708.html

3. Garmin 300C for $259 at Wholesale

http://www.wholesalesports.com/storefront/home/fishing/fish-finders/sonar/fishfinder-300c/prod264708.html

4. Humminbird 728 High Definition for $299 US from BassPro.com

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_10200066_250003000_250000000_250003000_250-3-0

5. Humminbird 363 GPS Combo for $299 US from BassPro.com

http://www.basspro.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/Product_10151_-1_10001_73394_250003000_250000000_250003000_250-3-0

I'm kind of partial to Lowrance, knowing many good anglers who run them. Garmin, while no doubt a leader in GPS, I'm a little leery of being relatively new to the sonar market. Humminbird I'm unsure of (unless I was buying a side-scan unit! One day....)

Any advice on which way to go would be much appreciated! Thanks!

[gpguy7]

You're right in the factthat Garmin is relatively new to the sonar market. However, you're looking for structure for the most part. With the Garmin unit you've selected you've got one thing going for you, color. I find that the color screen on any unit gives you a major advantage when trying to determine what structure you're fishing. You're not sitting there trying to make out what scale of grey you're looking at to determine the density or type of structure you're sitting on.

Humminbird in my opinion is a better product for less money. Unless you get into the high end lowrances like the HDS10, its a lot easier to use the functions on a humminbird but thats just my opinion. Now if you're looking at a combo unit, the high end lowrances are a better product but you're also looking at 800 plus dollars.

Don't forget to look at eagle sonars, eagle and lowrance are the same company. Same software and everything, and you can usually find an eagle at a little bit less price.

[jrcw]

Thanks for the tips gpguy7. I was unsure how much of a benefit the colour feature would be having never used one. To be honest, I'm a little unclear on exactly what the variating colours would indicate. Mud vs rock? Weeds vs sand?

Good call on the Eagle sonars. I remember now that they're the same company as Lowrance. I'll have to give their models a second look.