Best addition to the boat in a long time was the purchase of a Garmin 540 last year. Mounted it at the helm on a snap-it mount. It's visible since it rotates and tilts on its own mount. Found I rarely had to go below anymore to check the laptop(running nobeltec).

Comments re hard to set up routes are correct. however, garmin has come out with a new pc software program called Homeport where you can plan your routes at home on the PC, save them to an SD card, and take the card to the boat and load the routes into the plotter. AND price for the software is $29. !!

Garmins come with entire US as well as Bahamas Explorer charts built in, --can't beat that! Also, Garmin continually updates their software and these updates are free and downloadable from Garmin's website.

All in all a great unit for a good price (around$600- 5 inch screen).

My vote is for Garmin.

Rodd