I have never had good luck with depth finders. I don't know if its my fault or if the three Lowrances I've had in the past that came with my boats were broken. Basically I want a simple, user friendly depth finder that will show me a clear shot below me, and will not lose the bottom. My lowrances always lost the bottom and got screwy on me.

Any suggestions for an easy to use, clear picture depth finder that doesn't cost an arm and a leg? I dont need all the fancy high tech side view, color screen, gps, navigation stuff.

Dude, I've had really good luck with my legacy Pinpoint 7520s...

I have one up front and one on the drivers console.

If you are running motorguide, there was a merger/acquisition that happened, and you might already have a pinpoint read trolling motor if its a Motorguide. Slim chance, you probably would have explored that already...

Anway, my PinPoints are circa 2001 technology, and for black and white graphs, that can go deep or shallow, and don't require a bunch of monkeying around....I'm pretty impressed with them, and their longevity. I've had to replace one on my console that got ripped off running thru big waves (johnny mounted, doh), and was able to get a used one off the NCBF forum for $250.

I can't badmouth Lowrance or the rest, from lack of experience. But I've fished with some guys last year with new Lowrance color and gps and mapping that blew me away...solid solid technology and competitive advantage. Take that one step further, TMike showed me his side scanner Humminbird...shoots. Humminbird woke up and came up with something special there. I mean, NASA style technology, side scan, and get almost video quality output of structure that you don't even have to drive over...just to the side of...ridiculously good technology and competitive advantage IMO. Especially out here, where brush piling is the name of the spotted bass game....I mean, you could drive around and mark brush piles and rock formations, GPS mark them, store them, put to your software map of the lake, and setup correctly everytime to throw baits over top of the brush or in the brush.

Anyway, I wouldn't ignore PinPoint, just cuz its solid and reliable.

I have had great luck with the newer Lowrance units. The old ones suck I must agree. They are fairly easy to use and the color is a huge advantage now. I can see fish holding close to structure, I have marked them in the grass too. Its really nice to see the color changes and know exactly what is below you.

I have the LMS 332C with GPS. So far, so good after 2 years. I have used in saltwater and in fresh. Rough days and calm days with zero issues. You can also add the Navionics software to the system (very cool for some water)

I know that Matt and some of my other friends with Pinpoints love them. They seem to be very durable units.