I was looking through the new spring Bass Pro Shops catalog that came the other day in the mail. It has the latest fishfinders from Lowrance in it, including the X-91. Has anyone fished the X-91? The catalog says it comes standard with temp. but what about speed? Is the unit even capable of having a speed transducer hooked up to it? What would be the differences between the X-91 and the X-85? Do anyone know of any stores in northern California that have the units? Thanks for any help.

I recently got an X-85. As far as I can tell the differences between it and the x-85 are that they added a temp sensor into the transducer and changed the style of the buttons. Based on the picture they now have an 8 direction cursor movement button/pad where the x85 had four separate direction buttons. I would guess they've changed the user interface to take advantage of the diagonal direction capability.

I read somewhere that they also now offer a wide angle transducer. I think it's a 60 degree cone compared to the standard 20 degree cone that came with the x85. The 60 might be good if you only fish shallow water. I think the 20 degree still comes standard with the x91, but not sure. I think they still offer the 8 degree transducer for the deep water only people. The x85 had a form for swapping the standard 20 degree transducer for an 8 degree one at no charge.

As far as speed transducer, I haven't seen it in writing, but it has to support it. I would guess it also supports a couple extra temp sensors for air temp, live well temp, bait tank temp, etc. My x-85 supports up to 3 temp sensors in addition to a speed sensor and the transducer.

I love my x85. Excellent image and even though it's got a 3000 watt output, the clicking (I can hear it in my 12 foot aluminum boat without decks) is quieter than my old 375 watt humminbird. The one issue had with it was that it was so sensitive that my trolling motor induced noise on the screen. I'm running a infinitelt variable speed trolling motor off the same battery as the x85.

To fix the noise problem, I ran a small lead from the negative post on my battery through a 0.5A fuse to the hull of my boat. That took care of the noise (eliminates ground bounce due to the pulse width modulation in the motor controller by tieing ground to the lake). The key is that the this lead has to connect to a low resistance path to the water. The fuse is very important in case any 12V wires get worn through and cause a short to the water or the hull in my case. Wouldn't want to arc weld my trolling motor power cable to my hull or worse yet have it burn a hole through my hull.

Cody,
The X-91 is an updated version of the X-85, with a few new features. The X-91 has a 200 kHZ transducer that comes complete with temp sensor. That differs from the 192 kHZ transducer used on the X-85. This new unit also features Fast-Trak, which is like a real-time flasher which appears on the right side of the screen. This Fast-Trak allows you to see bait, fish, or structure before it is drawn on the screen like a traditional LCD unit.

The speed feature you can add to this unit is not another transducer, it is a seperate paddle wheel that must be mounted on the transom of the boat. Lowrance does not offer a transducer that includes both speed and temp. The temperature addition to the transducer of the X-91 is a new feature.

One last thing, the 200 kHZ transducer on the X-91 will allow you to run two units at the same time. Anyone with an older unit with a 192 kHZ transducer, can run that unit simultaneously with a new unit without any interference between the two. Since they work at different frequencies you can run the console unit at the same time as the bow unit, no matter what the depth and both will read independently. I know this for a fact, because my X-85, and my new LCX-15 MT (200 kHZ unit) never have interferred with one another. The LCX-15 also has the Fast-Trak feature, and I can tell you it is a useful tool for staying on bait, or trying to vertically catch fish you can see on the graph.

Thanks for your help, I ordered one from Bass Pro Shops today. There are some great deals out there on the X-85 units, but I am a firm believer in getting the most recent technology.

The X-85 has the fast-trak feature also.