Garmin GPSMAP 740S GPS Chartplotter

• 000/100
• Card Format SD
• Cartography - Preloaded Yes
• Cartography Brand Garmin
• Cartography Type NONE

Love the device. But, if you plan to try to use the built-in or puchased charts with HomePort software be prepared to be frustrated and unhappy. You'll hate Garmin's clunky software and there's a pretty good chance that you're going to damage your downloaded charts as you learn to use the HomePort interface. When it comes to software Garmin makes protection of their revenue stream a priority over usabilty. Device charts can be updated but no one-time update is available for charts. You get the chart versions available when unit was built. Potentially a safety issue. The unit is touchscreen and affordable, but next time I'll spend more time considering alternatives.

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I fish the marshes of south Louisiana. I purchased their map chip for this area for detailed maps because the navigating the cuts and bayous is critical. What I discovered is that the map overlays for a given area are so DARK that they are virtually useless. Who in the world designed this feature? It is obvious that some tech dude, who's never been outdoors, developed these screens indoors with no outside light. Pull their map overlay up in the daytime and you can't see a bloody thing! For such a high price you'd think that having maps that are usable isn't too much to expect.

The unit itself is user friendly, and has lots of cute features, but give me the Lowrance maps for accuracy on the water.

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They are misleading the retail price and the add makes it sound like it comes with the equipment for the sounder. That is xtra!

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I investigated this unit thoroly before I bought it. All reviews were very positive.

So far, I have installed it and networked it (NMEA 0183) to my Simrad AP25 Autopilot and my Furuno 582 depthsounder.

It is working very well but I am still learning to use it.

I am impressed by its ease of use and think it will be a real asset to my fishing and cruising.

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Works Great sitting on my wife's kitchen table hooked up to a battery. Instantly and accurately determined my location from inside the house. The extra sensitive built in GPS antenna does what Garmin claims. So one can only hope that the fish-finder must preform just as well.

Can't wait until the weather starts to warm up (still in the teens) to go hook up in the boat and chase some king salmon and some big flat fish..

6/16/12 I also purchased an up-to-date BlueChart g2 Vision card for Alaska at a very good deal from a vendor here on Amazon, and all I can say is great things about this set up. Extremely accurate I was drifting around a Nav aid (buoy) and it was like only like 3-20 feet difference at times. Current & Tide tables can be displayed, even for days in advance!

The 740s is very to use, the touch screen is very nice and quick. You can adjust it for the use with gloves, making screen extra sensitive. I'm still getting used to the fish finder aspect of it but for the 2 hours I was able to test it was very good, you can either have it split screen Fishing Chart (contours of the bottom) and sounder and or split the screen for 50kHz or 200kHZ for shallow & deep water readings at the same time. Depending what transducer you buy. Make sure you buy the correct transducer/tri-ducer, saltwater use verses fresh water use. there is a difference.

I'm still learning the fish finder part of it. Will post more updates soon.