Easy to use, easy to see, almost perfect.
Pros:
Ease of use, functionality, visibility
Cons:
little installation issues
The Bottom Line:
Excellent unit, very intuitive, and with some unique features.
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Overall Rating:
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Author's Review
We've just gone through our first season with the Northstar 6000i, which is equipped with the large screen, and has sounder and radar installed. My partner insisted on reading the entire manual, and I went on intuition. He found a few features that weren't immediately obvious, but the menus are incredibly intuitive and easy to follow for anyone that has used a GPS before. The screen is incredibly bright, and crisp, and visible while wearing polaroids. The GPS with navionics card installed has incredible detail and is spot on for accuracy. The point and run feature makes navigating to a spot incredibly easy. Making and editing waypoints couldn't be easier. The radar overlay worked perfectly - just as documented. The sounder has a nifty feature. If you pass some bottom structure or a school of baitfish, and see it on screen only after you are past it, you can scroll back on the screen to that position and, because it is integrated with the GPS, you can readily return to that spot, or add it as a waypoint (though I am not fully convinced of the accuracy of this method).
We had initial difficulty losing the sounder at above 10 knots, but that turned out to be an installation problem (the transom mount transducer was mounted too low and tipped backwards) and is now resolved. The last item to be fixed is the water temperature readout - which doesn't - but I suspect that is an installation problem too, or a faulty transmitter, and will be corrected soon with a new depth/speed/temp transducer unit.
I do not yet trust the speed through water feature, and I am hoping that will also be corrected with the new transducer.
