Wally13 wrote on Sep 20^th, 2014 at 3:39pm:

Old Salt, Picked up a Lowrance X-4 per Magicpaddlers recommendation. It is cheap $80, has all the bells and whistles and most importantly does not use a lot of power to function. It performed flawlessly shooting thru the hull of my Magic on my Saganagons solo this summer. I had no idea that transducers can have such a short shelf life. I have 2 older Eagle portable units that must be over 15 years old and the older style "puck" transducers still work well. Maybe its is the newer style "skimmer" transducers that poop out after a few years.

I had no idea about short shelf life either. Makes me think it might make sense to pack a spare transducer. Maybe I'll buy two.