Lowrance vs Humminbird – Which Is Better?

One of the biggest questions in the world of fish finders has to be “Which brand is better? Lowrance or Humminbird?”

Unfortunately, the Lowrance-Humminbird debate is like the Chevy-Ford debate. There’s really no one choice, and it’s very much dependent on personal preference.

If you scour some of the forum discussions on this topic, you’ll see people that are big Humminbird fans and people that are big Lowrance fans.  We are a fan of both and below are our Lowrance vs Humminbird picks as the best quality for the price.

Our Favorite Fishfinders

You’ll also see the occasional person who has both, and is pretty happy with both units!

Customer service really depends on your luck. Both Lowrance and Humminbird have good and bad service reps, and the chances of getting a bad unit are equal with both brands.

However, there are certain advantages to each brand which I’ll go through here. I won’t be able to tell you which brand is better, but hopefully I’ll give you a better idea of what brand to choose according to your needs.

Advantages of Lowrance

Very Good Small Units:

Lowrance has a very wide range of offerings, from larger professional units to smaller weekend-angler units. The Lowrance Hook series, ranges from units that have 3.5 inch screens all the way up to 9 inch screens.

The 3.5 inch models are awesome for the price. For less than $200, you can get a really decent fish finder. Some of the smaller Hook models such as the Lowrance Hook-3X DSI have DownScan imaging for under $150 – something that was unthinkable a few years ago.

There’s also the Lowrance Hook 4 which is a combination of fish finder/chartplotter, also under $300, and the Lowrance Hook 4x which is the same as the 3x, but with a slightly larger screen.

Finally, the mid-size Hook 5 comes in many different models, from a very basic fish finder/chartplotter, to one with DownScan imaging, or one with an advanced Navionics+ mapping package. 

You can still find the Hook 5 at under $500, which is a decent price considering the amount of bang you get for your buck.

Disadvantages of Lowrance

Technology Comes At A Cost:

As good as the small 3 and 4 inch units are, the 5-9 inch units just don’t have that much technology in them as other manufacturers.

In larger models, you’re basically paying for just the screen size and nothing else, because the other benefits like 3D SONAR and a good mapping package/GPS can already be found in smaller models.

Then you’ll have to decide whether you can rationalize paying a few hundred dollars more for just a larger screen size.  Don’t get me wrong – a bigger screen size can be very advantageous – you can see a lot, lot more in a bigger screen, especially if you are looking at SONAR readings tens of feet deep. The level of detail you can see on a higher resolution screen will be higher, no doubt.  However, some people may not be able to justify shelling out that much extra cash for a few inches in screen size.

 

 

Check these Lowrance Fish Finder suggestions:

Advantages of Humminbird

Innovation:

Humminbird clearly outperforms Lowrance when it comes to innovation. Humminbird were the first to come out with 360 degree SONAR and Side Imaging, too.

While not all of their products were a hit (like the 360 SONAR), it shows that Humminbird is willing to take greater risks to try and bring the next best product to market.

I feel they’ve really achieved that with their Side Imaging technology. A couple of years ago, when they first introduced it, it was only available on high-end $1,000 models. Even so, at that time, SideScan was only available on Lowrance HDS multi-function displays, and that too with their StructureScan module, so you were looking to spend over $1,500 if you wanted Side Scan SONAR with Lowrance.

 

Fast forward to now and Side Imaging by Humminbird is more wallet-friendly than ever. Models like the Helix-5 available for less than $500 and deliver crisp, clean side imaging SONAR readings.

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Disadvantages of Humminbird

Budget Starts Higher:

While Lowrance offers really inexpensive-but-good small fish finders, Humminbird’s smaller offerings are very limited and don’t have quite the punch that the Lowrance units.

The Humminbird budget units are called the PiranhaMax series, and if your budget is less than $200, go the the established Lowrance series rather than the PiranhaMax series.

There used to be lots of PiranhaMax models, but Humminbird seems to be cutting down on those series, so they probably weren’t doing so well.

Check these Humminbird Fish Finder suggestions:

Alternatives To Both

Humminbird and Lowrance may be the Chevy and Ford of the fishing industry, but there are other brands that have really decent fish finders – except we don’t really hear about them much because most of the sponsorships belong to those two!

Raymarine:

The Raymarine Axiom 7 Fish Finder series is an awesome but lesser-known fish finder. It packs a lot of technology into a small package, and is incredibly easy to use with a high quality multi-touch touch screen display. The ease of use is like that of an iPhone – there’s just one button!

The Axiom 7 has really high-resolution, Chirp Sonar, Downvision with Transducer, Navionics+, and an accurate GPS chip which can be used with optional mapping packages for a really all-in-one unit.

 

Garmin:

Another fish finder brand that may not be as well known but is super high quality is Garmin. Garmin is usually known for GPS and maps, so we don’t really think “fish finding” when we hear Garmin.

Perhaps that’s the reason for Raymarine being lesser known, too – they make radars, radios, and other marine electronics first, then fish finders second.

 

Coming back to Garmin, their fish finders – such as the Striker series – are solid, well-built, and have astounding picture quality. In fact, many people that use Garmin don’t ever go back!

 

So as you can tell, there’s really no clear winner in the fish finder battle, but if you are really torn between the two giants Lowrance and Humminbird, why not try something totally new – a Garmin or Raymarine!