Would you buy a “discontinued” chartplotter?

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fredrussell

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I’ve got some gift vouchers for my local chandlery (Foxes, Ipswich) and would like to buy a chartplotter. For the space in my boat optimum size is 7” plotter. Foxes have, on the shelf, a Garmin GPSmap 722xs, which would be ideal. According to Garmin website, and various suppliers, this model AND the Echomap models are now discontinued.
Should I be concerned about this? Will product support be less, er, ‘supportive’ as a result?

I think Foxes stock the other brands of plotter too, but I am more keen on Garmin as they are slightly more compact and so should fit in my instruments panel above sliding hatch.
 
I bought our chartplotter in 2015, it is a Simrad NSS7 and had at the time recently been discontinued by Simrad/Navico. The reasons I wanted it were quite specific: It was the last of the Simrad plotters made before Navico split Simrad and B&G into mobo/sail brands, so it was the last of the Simrad plotters that made sense for a sailing boat. It matched and integrated easily with all my other simrad gear, which was of the same age, and above all it had an 0183 port, which later Navico plotters did not have, so I had more options in integrating the 0183 parts of my system with it (the 0183 port is set to high speed and receives AIS).

The plotter is still in perfect working condition and accepts the latest Navionics updates etc, so still very happy.

I couldn't care less about manufacturer 'support'- if the plotter fails I am sure they would shrug their shoulders outside a 12 month warranty and I don't need manufacturer's help to set up or run marine electronics.
 
Whatever you buy will soon be a discontinued model and if the Garmin is heavily discounted, you like it and it will fit then why not? I have a Garmin GPSMap 750 plotter and it has been totally reliable for 10 years now and I like it apart from the unique to Garmin map colouration.
 
bitbaltic said:
outside a 12 month warranty and I don't need manufacturer's
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There's a legally mandated 24 month warranty thanks to the EU on all goods sold in the UK. We also have the "reasonable period" of the old UK consumer laws. Nothing has a warranty as short as 12 months here, you can safely ignore the text suggesting otherwise which is written for the US market and with the hope it will discourage EU people from using their rights.
It's unlikely, but entirely possible that this could change now we've taken back control. If that happens we would either return to the wooly and useless UK wording or align with the USA and lose some rights.
 
The reason I would be wary of a discontinued Garmin is that they used to use their own cartography and when a discontinued model became a few years old, the cartography was also stopped so the thing became useless. I don't know if that is still the case with Garmin, as I have never darkened their door since, but my Raymarine C80 was discontinued years and years ago and I can still update the Navionics cartography. So, the key question is not so much about the plotter itself, but the cartography it uses IMHO.
 
As far as I can tell Garmin still support the same cartography on all of their models. Their mapping solution has never had significant changes. They've introduced new products, but I'm not aware of any blocking changes and all my kit still works fine
 
Garmin uk retail is £740. Many places still selling it. As long as the chart format is available then I would buy with a great discount as it doesn't seem to be lacking any features.
 
fredrussell said:
I’ve got some gift vouchers for my local chandlery (Foxes, Ipswich) and would like to buy a chartplotter. For the space in my boat optimum size is 7” plotter. Foxes have, on the shelf, a Garmin GPSmap 722xs, which would be ideal. According to Garmin website, and various suppliers, this model AND the Echomap models are now discontinued.
Should I be concerned about this? Will product support be less, er, ‘supportive’ as a result?

I think Foxes stock the other brands of plotter too, but I am more keen on Garmin as they are slightly more compact and so should fit in my instruments panel above sliding hatch.
Click to expand...

I have a 722 (in fact two of them) non-xs and am very happy with them, with the proviso that if there is space and funds bigger is better. The support from Garmin Europe Marine team is also excellent in my experience.
 
fredrussell said:
I’ve got some gift vouchers for my local chandlery (Foxes, Ipswich) and would like to buy a chartplotter. For the space in my boat optimum size is 7” plotter. Foxes have, on the shelf, a Garmin GPSmap 722xs, which would be ideal. According to Garmin website, and various suppliers, this model AND the Echomap models are now discontinued.
Should I be concerned about this? Will product support be less, er, ‘supportive’ as a result?
Click to expand...

It's a fairly recent model, and you'll still get Garmin support. But how much is it? And do you really need the sonar version? For comparison, allGadgets are listing the 722xs at £619, and Marine SuperStore have the more recent 722 Plus at £650.
 
fwiw, Garmin issue firmware updates to the h/w range every six months or so. My plotters are (4008 and 5008) are a good decade old, probably much more! and they still work fine.
Latest update was a couple of years ago to support some new a/p and radar h/w
maps come on sd cards and have nothing to do with age/support of the model. if the price is right go ahead!
 
lustyd said:
As far as I can tell Garmin still support the same cartography on all of their models. Their mapping solution has never had significant changes. They've introduced new products, but I'm not aware of any blocking changes and all my kit still works fine
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They might do now, hence my line "I don't know if that's still the case" but it wasn't always, and once bitten.......
 
true about 15yrs ago the swapped from their proprietary card to SD. I'd start getting worried once they change media format/standard, but the only change I'd expect sometime in the future when each boat has internet connectivity is to go to OTA update of maps with no media to move them about. Dunno how soon that would be though...
 
Garmin are sometimes surprising quick to declare older models "not supported" and not repairable if you have a problem shortly after warranty ends. Been caught by that. Raymarine a bit better. Have never had a problem with anything Standard Horizon, so can't tell!
 
We had a Garmin 182c on our rib. About 7 yeas ago it failed and it was a discontinued model. Garmin happily replaced it with the 'current' (551 I think) model for a very reasonable fee. I'm not sure they still do this but I was impressed at the time with the service we received.
 
jwilson said:
Garmin are sometimes surprising quick to declare older models "not supported" and not repairable if you have a problem shortly after warranty ends. Been caught by that. Raymarine a bit better. Have never had a problem with anything Standard Horizon, so can't tell!
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I disagree John.

I recently had a customers i60 wind display fail with moisture ingress. It's still a current model, cost over £400. Raymarine said it's not repairable and they don't guarantee it won't steam up inside anyway as it's not hermetically sealed.

My Garmin autopilot display had a scratch on the screen (bought 2nd hand on Ebay) i enquired about a replacement screen and was told one was not available. But, they would do a "refurbished" one for £126 The refurbished one looked brand new and even came with a new Sun cover.

Garmin GMi20s are also available "refurbished" for the same £126
 
fredrussell said:
I’ve got some gift vouchers for my local chandlery (Foxes, Ipswich) and would like to buy a chartplotter. For the space in my boat optimum size is 7” plotter. Foxes have, on the shelf, a Garmin GPSmap 722xs, which would be ideal. According to Garmin website, and various suppliers, this model AND the Echomap models are now discontinued.
Should I be concerned about this? Will product support be less, er, ‘supportive’ as a result?

I think Foxes stock the other brands of plotter too, but I am more keen on Garmin as they are slightly more compact and so should fit in my instruments panel above sliding hatch.
Click to expand...

If you remember from another thread Fred, the Echomap models haven't been discontinued, as such, they are just called Echomap Ultras, to reflect the higher screen definition. If Foxs price is good enough i wouldn't worry about buying a discontinued model anyway, chances are whatever you buy will be superseded in a short time anyway, but that doesn't mean it will be unsupported.
 
pvb said:
It's a fairly recent model, and you'll still get Garmin support. But how much is it? And do you really need the sonar version? For comparison, allGadgets are listing the 722xs at £619, and Marine SuperStore have the more recent 722 Plus at £650.
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Foxes are selling the 722xs for £720, but I think they’ll price match, so cheers for the info pvb - I’ll give them a call. I don’t need the sonar version, but it’s what they have in. They’re trying to find an Echomap 7” for me (U.K. charts included) but these seem to be few and far between.
 
PaulRainbow said:
If you remember from another thread Fred, the Echomap models haven't been discontinued, as such, they are just called Echomap Ultras, to reflect the higher screen definition. If Foxs price is good enough i wouldn't worry about buying a discontinued model anyway, chances are whatever you buy will be superseded in a short time anyway, but that doesn't mean it will be unsupported.
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Cheers Paul, useful info. I would prefer an Echomap, it just depends if Foxes can find one. I dare say supply chains are still a bit messed up due to covid, so I may have a bit of a wait on my hands...
 
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