Standard Horizon

[JonasB]

Just finishing up buying a new/used boat and the GPS needs to be replaced. Wondering if anyone has any experience with the Standard Horizon CP500. Not interested in fully integrating anything. Just looking for a good standalone unit

Jonas

[David M]

We have five different boats at work that get lots of use. All the boats have GPS units. I have tried a number of different brands. In my experience, the Garmin's are the most trouble free with Lowrance having the most problems. I have never purchased a Standard Horizon GPS since none of them have had what I needed.

Most mounted and handheld GPS units have some sort of port out now. So if you want one without an output port, then you might have to look around quite a bit. I don't see any price differences anymore between those with ports and those without ports.

[AnchorageGuy]

Jonas, We have used the Standard Horizon Chartplotter on both of our boats now and find it fantastic. I am a certified tech for Raymarine, etc and if you are not looking for a unit to integrate with all of the computers and gadgets in the universe this will be a good investment. It has enough bells and whistles for any navigation you need to do. It is very user friendly compared to Garmin and don't get me started on Raymarine. We like the C-Maps compared to the others but that is a personal preferance and the unit is just well built and will integrate with NMEA such as autopilot etc. if you like. Based on my first hand experience with it and first hand experience with most of the other plotters I think you will be very happy with it for your purpose. Oh, and as you already know it is much, much, much, you get the idea, less expensive than the others. we use it in the flybridge on the new trawler and in the cockpit on the previous sailboat and with the internal antenna never lost a fix. Good luck

[Sandero]

The CP170 was my first plotter. Still have it on board as a "back up". It had a few problems over the 8 years that I had it, but were repaired at Horizon with no charge - LCD back lighting failed and they replaced "it", and then the antenna crapped out and that had to be replaced.

I don't care the the user interface on most of the units, but this one is no worse than the Raymarine C80 and a heck of a lot cheaper (and smaller too) and seems to have the same bells and whistles and considering it is 8yrs old, not much has changed... ha?

I like their customer support. Did they have to replace my antenna after 7 yrs for free? No, but they did. Score one for Horizon.

[AnchorageGuy]

Originally Posted by defjef

The CP170 was my first plotter. Still have it on board as a "back up". It had a few problems over the 8 years that I had it, but were repaired at Horizon with no charge - LCD back lighting failed and they replaced "it", and then the antenna crapped out and that had to be replaced.

I don't care the the user interface on most of the units, but this one is no worse than the Raymarine C80 and a heck of a lot cheaper (and smaller too) and seems to have the same bells and whistles and considering it is 8yrs old, not much has changed... ha?

I like their customer support. Did they have to replace my antenna after 7 yrs for free? No, but they did. Score one for Horizon.

My experience over the years has been much the same. They have always gone above and beyond the few times I have had a problem. We are outfitting the new trawler and the Standard Horizon plotter, VHF, and Command mike are sitting here right now ready for me to install. IMO the absolute best bang for the buck.

[hellosailor]

Little experience with SH, but their customer support went way beyond what they had to, they earned a place on my short list of vendors to try firstest.

[rodney_k]

I have a Horizon Std CPV350 Chartplotter/VHF Combo aboard for about the last 2 years. The unit has been a wonderfull chartplotter, and the radio is great. While some may not want the 2 functions in one box, having the GPS & VHF in one unit freed up space at the nav station, and made the DSC funtions of the VHF effortless. The unit is pretty user friendly, almost on a par with the Garmin GPS292 at the helm. All menu driven. The CPV 350 is interfaced with the rest of the systems on the boat via a Brookhouse mux. The unit also displays AIS targets on screen. Couldn't be happier.