In all honesty, both are great units from great companies. Just go to a store, play with both and whichever jumps out at you buy it.
Agree to a point...both are great units. Becomes a personal choice as far as features, looks etc. However if the unit stops working, then customer service is paramount. Again that's where Lowrance falls down.
I took the following off another board that I remembered from a couple months ago. Notice all three support numbers for customer service are the same. Navico is an off shore company that bought out Lowrance. That's about when their customer service went even further south. The following information would be enough to make me avoid buying anything from Lowrance. For what it's worth.
From another forum...............
Navico is Lowrance Simrad. and Northstar. All the same support.
Crappy. And garmin in no better. Stay with Furuno.
I googled each brand. and looked up thier support number
here is what I found.
Simrad 1-800-628-4487
Lowrance 1-800-628-4487
Northstar 1-800-628-4487.