Furuno has been a highly regarded brand since the 1930s, when the company was founded. It is among the world’s first producers of fish finders. Furuno produces a variety of marine electronics as well as global positioning systems (GPS). The company is based in Japan but is an international business, with lots of American fishermen buying its products. They actually design and produce electronics catered to military use. They have been awarded the Best Navigation System award for the last eight years–that tells you something about the quality of their products.
Like many Japanese producers of electronics, Furuno leads the pack in making increasingly advanced technologies available for commercial and personal use. One of their products combines Furuno’s advanced GPS and marine electronics into one–that is the Color GPS Chartplotter/Fish Finder Combo GP1870F. This product is a great buy. It is portable, extremely high-tech, and relatively affordable in consideration of its advanced capabilities. In this article, I will list and explain these capabilities in greater detail, and you can decide for yourself whether it is the right choice for you.
Basic Specs
The Furuno GP1870F is more expensive than other, much less capable fish finders, but makes up for it with all of its features. It has an incredibly simple and straightforward interface, featuring Furuno’s RotoKey controller. Its color screen measures seven inches and uses LCD technology. Its LCD and glass are bonded for incredible clarity, and results are easy to see on the screen in even the brightest sunlight. The GP1870F measures 9.9 x 5.8 x 3.9 inches and weighs only 4.4 pounds. It is also waterproof, which, along with its size, makes for perfect portability.
Best of Both Worlds: Fish Finder and Chartplotter
This product is most notable for the way it combines Furuno’s incredible GPS and charting technologies with its equally world-renowned fish finders. This is an unprecedented move by Furuno, and one that will change the game by raising expectations and pushing everyone in the industry to do even better.
Fish Finder Technologies
The GP1870F’s fish finder uses a variety of technologies: Accu-Fish, Post-Processing Gain, and Bottom Discrimination. Accu-Fish tells you the size of the fish in the water below, anywhere from 4 inches long to a massive 6 feet long. Unlike conventional gain controls, wherein changes are applied only to new sonar results (leading to a confusing disparity), Post-Processing Gain applies new settings to existing echoes as well. This makes it much easier to choose the gain setting that works for where you are. (This feature was previously only available on Furuno’s fish finders catered to commercial use–how exciting that it is now available here.)
Finally, Bottom Discrimination mode allows you to tell what the composition of the bottom of your given body of water is–sand, gravel, rocks, mud, and so forth. In areas where the bottom is composed of multiple substances, the GP1870F offers a probability curve of bottom composition. In addition, the GP1870F is dual-frequency 50/200kHz, and you can choose either a 600W or 1kW transducer with this product.
GPS and Chartplotting
Furuno GP1870F’s mapping capability also employs the latest technology, Jeppesen C-MAP 4D cartography. It is “4D” because it accounts for time: you can continuously update charts, meaning they never become outdated. (This, of course, adds to the product’s overall affordability, because it reduces the need to purchase new fish finders/chartplotters in the future.) This incredible technology provides aerial photos of popular fishing locations, as well as 3D chart views with satellite imagery of coasts overlaid onto vector chart data, and digital raster navigational charts with 2D or 3D overlay. C-MAP 4D’s Easy Routing shows the quickest path for boats; its charts can be customized such that they fit your specific requirements. It also has 50-channel GPS receiver.
A Wise Choice
This is a truly incredible product. If you are looking for some of the most advanced technologies on the market, from one of the most respected brands in the industry (Furuno must have been doing something right during its 80 years of existence!), all rolled up into one intuitive and portable package, this is the right choice. I completely recommend it.