What is a good, inexpensive and relativley easy gps for recreational boating?

I am looking for a simple gps for a boat. Nothing too special, no fish finder etc., just something recreational for lakes. No fishing gps please, just something easy to use and tells me the depth of the water.|||Buy a Garmin Colorado Handheld. Yeah...it uses 2 aa batteries. If you get a four battery charger you should be good for 15 hrs or more. Its waterproof and built tough. Plus you get a lot of the functionality that the expensive on board units have.





Just be aware that using a gps to figure out depth will not always be accurate. Some of those readings are 10 years old.





You probably would be better suited with a fish finder than the gps.|||If it has a sonar fitted you are looking at a fish finder if you want it or not. Any combined GPS and SONAR unit will be in the cheaper end of the market a fish finder. A simple Humminbird or Garmin or whatever may be either a GPS, or a fish finder. Any combined unit will be a fish finder with GPS. It is rare today to find a depth only indicator that is not a part of a larger system, such as fitted to yachts and combined cheap units.





Given that the cost of a reasonable recreational combined unit is less than half my first depth only indicator cost of 30 years ago I don't see any alternative.





There is not much complicated about modern GPS units or SONAR. The default settings suit most casual users and the instruction manuals are aimed directly at the first time user. Most I have seen are rarely ever used to their full capacity and many features after the initial fiddling are never accessed anyway. The very cheap ones do have limited abilities to play with the settings, and if you don't want to in the first place then that is just fine. Not reading the manual is the most common reason people have problems - that is beyond anyone's control other than the operator!





Good luck, there are some very good little units from as little as $200, and from twice that you should find everything you need. Buy the brand that is supported locally so servicing is not an issue. Once you look for quality and reliability you should look to Furuno - in my opinion and experience the best quality units when your life and livelihood depends on them. Their SONAR technology has led the pack since they introduced the Chromascope colour units of the '70's. The rest are judged against Furuno.