Update for those who might read this post in the future:
I purchased the Xi 9 20 ice transducer for it and it has made things much better. I've learned to run the chart speed at 7 and to stick with the 200 khz beam only. I've had it out for a few trips now and it works pretty darn good in my opinion. I've used it in water up to 32' and with a bit if tuning with the sensitivity, it will pick up what turned out to be 4-5" perch in 20' of water. Bigger fish like 10" perch or crappie are easily marked at the deepest depths I've fished. I turn off all the views I don't need, make sure to set ice fishing mode "on" in the setup menu and set the lowest depth to a couple of feet deeper than actual depth. It does the job.