New Chartploter Question

[Broken Glass]

I have been searching for two days trying to get an answer to this question. Maybe someone here can help.
I am looking at a RayMarine A78 Chartplotter to replace the older RayMarine unit in my boat. According to the compatibility chart from Jeppesen, the unit uses 4D Max or 4D Max+. Jeppesen told me that the older technology (NT+ and Max), is included on the new charts. I am not convinced that this CSR understood my question about this particular lake.
Does anyone know if this unit will work for me?
Thanks
Dan

[RDuffey656]

I am not sure about the unit you speak of, but there is a much much cheaper way to get a good plotter. Buy any decent 10" tablet which has stand alone GPS (I use a Samsung galaxy tab) and then load the Navionics USA app which turns the tablet into a plotter. Buy a mount and if needed a waterproof case and bingo-you have a great plotter for less than $400 and you get a good tablet to boot. when i bought my Navionics app it was $ 49.00 and it includes all bodies of water in the US including the lake and it is very accurate.

just make sure if you do this you get a tablet which has the stand alone GPS, that way you do not use any data.

BTW for anyone interested you can also turn your cell phone into a 4" tablet by purchasing the navionics app for cell phones. $ 14.95 last time I checked.

[Broken Glass]

Thank you for the tip. The built in unit does a few things that the tablet won't, such as sonar/ fish finder. The sonar is real important when fishing. another issue with my boat is the hard top. An external antenna is needed for an uninterrupted satellite signal.

I have the app on my phone as a backup just in case the built in unit fails. Some nights headed out to the island late and dark, the GPS is a nice second look at your position!
Dan

[Slickcraft]

B.G., agree on the sonar capability of a chart-plotter. The tablet/phone concept with Navionics app may be worth considering as an inexpensive back up to have on your phone.

As to the hard top, as you know we got the Eastern last summer and it has a hard top. I have an older Standard Horizons CP180i with internal antenna and it works fine in the Eastern. That said, I'll probably look for an upgrade GPS with sonar capability for the new boat.

[Just Sold]

Dan I have a Garmin 545 GPSMAP with a dual frequency transducer (depth/fish finder) and an older versiion of the Garmin map for Winni and it works great. I like the Garmin.