My buddies 7amp battery lasts a typical 6+ hour trip but he just bought it last year. I run a HDS 5/GPS on a 9 amp Vex battery and can go all day (6-7+) hours without charging. Upgrade to the 9amp when you need to replace, reportedly 30% greater run time. Hope you like your unit, love the Navionics maps and ability to mark hotspots, almost feels like cheating going to a new lake and knowing the bottom contours. BTW, had used Vexs and never looked back, so nice not to have to constantly look at the screen, mine will easily mark a 5mm tungsten and spikes to 50 feet and shows crappie launching off bottom like an ICBM to intercept, almost a 100% take when you see that. Will also show them sitting on bottom as a slight gold line. One neat thing on the HDS, cruising fish out on the periphery show a dark blue line, as they get closer it turns red and when they are directly under you, right on your jig, they mark as bright gold.
Garmin just came out with a 5" Chirp sounder that I'd love to convert for ice fishing, have an 8" Garmin chirp on my saltwater boat and it's incredible in deep water, can't image adapting their new side scan for ice fishing, no more swinging the transducer. My boat Chirp does suck up the battery however.
