The Garmin 8610xsv is also a discontinued model, which it started off with a $2,800 msrp price tag from the Garmin website when it was brand new and available through them. BOE Marine is where I do all of my online electronics or marine orders through as they generally always have the best pricing, they will match other retailers prices and they don't charge tax. When I was shopping for MFD's in late June or early July of this summer they didn't have any close out prices like they do now, even the Garmin 943xsv at the time retailed at $1,499, of which I found it for $1,399 and BOE Marine matched the deal. Now they've got the 943xsv at $1,240.79, the 8610xsv at $2,300 and the 1243xsv at $2,370. At the time when I purchased my GPS, the 8610xsv wasn't on sale, nor were any of the other units, which I'm assuming has to do with it no longer being peak season and that they're likely going to come out with new products relatively soon, so they're putting the older ones on sale or discounted prices. Also at the time, I didn't really want to spend $2,800 just for an MFD, especially on a smaller 228 Seafarer where I personally don't really think I need that large of a screen. I also needed to buy a new transducer or at least figured that I needed one as my old MFD was almost 10 years old, so I spent an extra $300 on a brand new Garmin transducer as well, putting the total at around $1,700. Which again, I could've spent almost $3k on just an MFD alone, but then I'd need a transducer on top of that and I didn't want to spend almost $4k on electronics as my fishing needs are very basic. I like the Fish Eye 3d chart that Garmin has where it shows the colored dots that are supposedly the fish, and then I also added the depth to that screen as well as water temperature, direction and my speed.
Lastly with regards to pixel numbers, I doubt that I or anyone else would ever notice the difference between the 80 additional pixels that the 1243xsv has over the 943xsv. Similarly, the 8610xsv with 1,920 x 1,200 pixels puts it at 120 pixels more than your standard 1080p resolution. Which again, I doubt most people would be able to visually differentiate between 1,920 x 1,080 pixels compared to 1,920 x 1,200 pixels. I've got better than perfect vision at 20/10 and don't even notice that big of a difference between 720p and 1080 on YouTube videos except that sometimes they show as being brighter or slightly more vivid, but the claim is that most people can't even tell that there is a difference, and that's if you even have "perfect vision" at 20/20. I'm sure that one day all of these MFD's will be a minimum of 1080p or 4k but for the time being, my Garmin 943xsv being the good ole standard HD 720p is more than fine by me. If it was a bigger screen like a TV where we're talking about sometimes 65"-75" and greater then sure, I think that there's the argument for possibly getting a 4k TV since you could be sitting 10'+ away from your tv, maybe even a greater distance depending. On a 9"-12" MFD though, I think I'll be more than fine with 720p resolution, but if you've got money burning a hole in your pocket or simply want to spend more money on the screen that has more pixels, then buy whichever MFD you want to. It's your money and your boat, go check them out in person at your local retailer and see if you notice any difference between the two would be my suggestion.
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