Helix 7 or Garmin 73cv

[MTIceHunter]

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!

Santa (wife) got me a Humminbird Ice Helix 7 for Christmas and I couldn't be happier. I have been doing a lot of research in the last couple weeks and was actually leaning towards the Garmin Echomap Plus 73cv ice unit. I don't know a lot about transducers and electronics as this will be my first one. I am looking for some pros/cons of each unit and would like to use whichever one I choose on a boat as well for open water.

Some of the items I am aware of:
-both have 7" displays and similar features (flasher/graph/gps)
-both have CHIRP
-both can be used in open water to create your own maps
-Garmin has built in lake maps of 17k lakes. Maps available to purchase through Humminbird ($100+)
-can update Garmin to Panoptix in the future if I wanted.

Some of the items I am interested in:
-battery life
-other features (graphs, gps, etc.)
-target separation
-open water features and adaptability to open water transducers
-easy of use
-ice transducers that are included with each package (cone angles, zoom features, etc.)


I couldn't find much direct comparisons between the two and am not biased towards one or the other You all have been extremely helpful in the past and I can't wait to hear some responses. I have heard nothing but good things on each one individually.

Thank you!!!

[kayl]

Gander Outdoors has the Echomap Plus 73sv unit for $499.99 right now, while Cabela's has the Plus 93sv for $599.99. They can both run panoptix and both come with the boat transducer.

[NYBasser]

I don't have experience with the Garmin, but I used to have the Helix 5 Ice Bundle before I got the Marcum LX7 and I currently run a Helix 7 G2 on the front of my boat. No issues with either one of Humminbirds and they both work flawlessly. I do like the Marcum a bit better with the better target separation and interference rejection, but the Humminbirds are well worth it for the price, especially if you are going to use it all year round. Only complaint on the humminbird is that the battery life is a bit short when running on full brightness, but you can easily upgrade that with a lithium battery pack.

[kpd145]

I have the garmin 73sv for opens and ice. I use open water transducer for nice as well.

My buddy has a helix 7 with ice transducer.

For ice fishing the helix may have the edge. Target separation is pretty good and the graph mode works well.

I love my garmin though.

[sra61]

I have a couple of Helix 10's on my boat and a MarCum LX9 and Rt-9 that I use on ice. The thing about the Humminbird units that I utilize the most is the integration between the units and the MinnKota troller. I love being able to put a waypoint on a fish and navigate to it, and spot lock right on top of that mark. I only just recently became aware of the Garmin units with the Panoptix system. I have looked at them and I think they are a friggin steal price wise compared to both Humminbird and Lowrance, and the addition of the Panoptix system makes the Garmin a "must have" for me. I'm just going to add a 93sv+ to what I'm currently running on the boat and build the ice bundle for it. If I was starting from scratch I would definitely go with Garmin now. I looked at the 93sv+ at Cabela's and it's really nice. It's touchscreen with key combo. I messed around with it some and it seemed pretty easy to navigate through the  menus. With the ability to create your own contour maps as well, I see no reason to be spending $1500 for the newest and greatest Helix 9 when you can have basically the same functionality with the Garmin 93sv+ for only $600! 

[jbird68]

I'm waiting for ice to try my EchoMap 73dv I bought for the bow of my boat. If it works good using the boat transducer (Mounted to a PVC pipe) I will get the ice transducer next year. Also need to get a second Mount and power cord so I can just swap head units from water to ice. I'm just itching to try it out. I already had an EchoMap 73sv on the console of my boat. I got a good deal on the DV unit on ebay for about $230 shipped. The DV is replacing a non-chirp Lowrance Elite-5.

[Bubbadoyle]

I’ve got no experience with either one other than I built a garmin echomap 93sv plus livescope unit. I don’t have ice transducer for it. I have however played around with the flasher mode in simulator mode and it has some very nice features. There are two options for ice transducers. One is 8° to 16° and one is 16° to 24°. They are fully adjustable. You can pick any angle you want between the upper and lower limits. Another nice feature is the vertical zoom  window with the flasher. I believe it has a minimum setting of about 5 feet but I never really looked too close. The great thing is it is fully adjustable. You can set it by the foot to what you want the window to be. This is all touch screen on mine so to adjust the zoom it is a simple pinch move on the screen to adjust size and location of the zoom. I’d really like to see the ice transducer in action to see how well it works but from what I’ve read it’s awesome. I’d consider getting one but with my livescope build coming in at 22 lbs I doubt I’ll be hole hopping with the unit and most likely will always be fishing with the livescope.