REVIEW: Lowrance Gen 2 HDS 7 Touch
This is a review on the gen 2 hds 7″ touch sounder by Lowrance.
We have had our hds touch for a few months now, and it has been used for quite a variety of fishing situations, from fresh to salt and anywhere in between. We thought we would do a bit of a write up of the unit and how we have found it so far.
We wouldn’t want to go any smaller than the 7″ screen and if budget permitted would have got the 9″. We find when the screen is split 3 ways into chart, sonar and structure scan it is all just a bit too small. It is nice just having the full screen as sonar or structure, and can really see what is happening clearly from a few metres away.
The ideal sounder solution would be to run 2 of the 7″ units next to each other and as they can be networked together with the Lowrance ethernet cable and it is a easy option if you have the money.
A cheaper option which we have investigated and are currently in the process of doing is to purchase a older hds unit 5″ or 7″ and network that to the new unit so that they share the sonar data, leaving the main unit for just chart and structure scan and purely sonar on the 5″.
The touch is a breeze to use, and fits in with our day to day use of touch smart phones and tablets, soon nothing will have buttons! Everything is very self explanatory on the unit and once used for a few days is quick and easy to navigate all the functions and pages. The User manual is very detailed and easy to follow which makes learning the units functions nice and easy.
Some of our favourite functions of the unit are, being able to change screen size ratio, so for example can make the chart large to make the sonar smaller, easy to do and opens up a huge amount of flexibilty with your screens, plus you can save your custom screens for quick viewing.
Screen shots, these are easy to take and easy to put on an a sd card for viewing on the computer.
Structure scan, this is available on more models than the hds touch’s and is well worth looking into, makes reading the sonar image so much easier as you have something to compare the sonar image with, something that looks much more lifelike, which helps you to learn what the sonar is actually showing you also.
The gen 2 hds touch unit is great for all levels of anglers with sounder experience, from people who have never used one, with its simple layout and very straight forward operating, to the most experienced user who is able to use it to its full potential and anyone in between.
We would be lost now fishing without a sounder, as we do rely on it a lot to find locations which are holding fish and at what depth etc, plus having the structure scan to help interpret the sonar image. All in all it has made our ability to find and catch fish much greater and I can honestly say that we catch more fish now than before we had The HDS 7 sounder.
