Lowrance Hook Reveal 5x Fish Finder

Lowrance Hook Reveal 5x: What Anglers Are Saying

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot draws mixed reviews from customers, who praise its value and ease of use on one hand, but also level sharp criticism for its complexity, lack of durability, missing components, and misleading product description on the other.

Key points of criticism include the absence of a chartplotter and the fact that the microSD slot is limited to only saving self-created Genesis Live maps. Furthermore, while its wide 80° cone angle is useful in shallow water, it can make pinpointing fish more difficult in greater depths.

This fish finder is particularly well-suited for anglers who primarily fish in shallow waters up to about 30 feet deep or who specifically target shallow-water species like trout and pike. It serves as a more powerful and user-friendly alternative with GPS compared to the Lowrance Eagle 4X.

In this article, you’ll find our detailed review of the Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot. We’ve summarized the most relevant customer reviews and clearly laid out the biggest pros and cons of this fish finder for you.

Lowrance Hook Reveal 5x: The Official Editor’s Review

 

Maximum Depth / Sonar Frequencies / CHIRP

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot reaches a maximum depth of 500 feet with its traditional sonar and 300 feet with DownScan Imaging. It utilizes transducer frequencies of 83 and 200 kHz for traditional sonar and 455/800 kHz for DownScan Imaging.

Thanks to its CHIRP capability, it can send and receive multiple frequencies at the same time, allowing it to achieve great depth penetration while still delivering high-resolution images.

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot offers solid depth performance, reaching depths of up to 500 feet in saltwater with its traditional sonar.

For the DownScan Imaging feature, it can reach depths of up to 300 feet. In our comparison, this puts the fish finder in the lower range, alongside the Lowrance Eagle 4X (which also reaches 500 ft).

For a clear, traditional sonar image, the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot uses frequencies of 83 and 200 kHz. To see more detailed bottom structure, the DownScan Imaging feature utilizes higher frequencies of 455 and 800 kHz.

It’s important to know that lower frequencies penetrate deeper into the water but provide less detailed images. Higher frequencies, on the other hand, offer a significantly more detailed picture but don’t reach as deep.

Thanks to its ability to use multiple frequencies at once, the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot achieves both good depth and high-resolution images.

This is made possible by its high-resolution CHIRP function, which sends and receives several frequencies simultaneously, resulting in an exceptionally clear and detailed sonar picture.

 

Display Size / GPS / Chartplotter

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot features a 5-inch display. It has a built-in GPS for marking hotspots and includes Genesis Live, allowing you to create and save your own custom depth maps. It does not, however, have a full-featured chartplotter.

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot impresses with a 5-inch display featuring an 800 x 480 pixel resolution—a standard in this class and comparable to the Humminbird HELIX 5 G3. The screen is splittable, allowing you to view a depth chart and sonar image simultaneously, for example.

For anglers, the integrated GPS on the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is a huge advantage for marking and returning to your favorite hotspots.

A chartplotter is an electronic navigation device for boats that displays digital nautical charts and visualizes the boat’s current position in real-time. It is especially helpful for captains of large boats and ships to identify and navigate around shallows while underway.

Even though this unit lacks a full-featured chartplotter, its Genesis Live function allows you to create your own custom depth maps in real-time and save them to a microSD card (up to 32 GB).

 

Fish Finder Features / Down Imaging / Side Imaging

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot improves fish finding with its core features: FishReveal™ combines CHIRP sonar and DownScan Imaging to clearly distinguish fish from detailed structure.

The Autotuning Sonar automatically optimizes the settings for you, and the double sonar coverage (from its wide 80° cone angle) expands your search area.

The unit is equipped with DownScan Imaging, which provides high-resolution, picture-like images of what’s directly beneath the boat. However, the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot does not include a Side Imaging function.

The following features help you locate fish more effectively with the Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot:

FishReveal™
This unique feature combines the clear target separation of CHIRP sonar with the high-resolution images of bottom structure from DownScan Imaging, all on one screen.

This allows you to see fish clearly marked as arches against a detailed background of underwater structures like weed beds, rocks, or submerged objects. It takes the guesswork out of identifying targets and gives you precise information on where fish are positioned relative to their cover.

 

Autotuning Sonar
The Autotuning Sonar on the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot significantly simplifies operation by automatically adjusting the sonar settings as fishing conditions change.

Whether you’re in shallow water or deep, this function ensures you always get the best possible sonar image without having to make manual adjustments. This maximizes your time spent fishing and minimizes the learning curve with complex settings.

 

Double Sonar Coverage (80° Cone Angle)
With an impressive 80° cone angle, this unit offers double the sonar coverage of many traditional fish finders, which often use a much narrower cone.

This wider coverage increases the likelihood of spotting schools of fish or individual targets that might be off to the side of the boat. A larger search area means you cover more potentially productive water, significantly improving your efficiency in finding fish.

 

DownScan Imaging™
The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is equipped with DownScan Imaging. This Lowrance technology uses a high-frequency, razor-thin sonar beam to generate sharp, picture-like images of the underwater world directly beneath your boat.

On the display, you can identify bottom hardness, submerged vegetation, and schools of fish in high detail. This feature is a game-changer for precisely identifying structure and the fish holding tight to it.

Comparable technologies from other manufacturers include Humminbird’s Down Imaging or Garmin’s ClearVü, which also provide detailed views below the boat. The following models from our comparison also have this feature:

• Garmin Striker Vivid 4cv
• Humminbird Piranha Max 4 DI

Lowrance SideScan Imaging offers an impressive wide-angle perspective of the underwater world. A high-frequency sonar beam rapidly scans a large area on both sides of the boat.

The individual scans are then seamlessly stitched together into a single, detailed picture of the bottom and all the structure it holds. This allows you to identify underwater landscapes, schools of fish, and objects that are not directly underneath your boat.

Users can zoom in on details or mark promising structures and hotspots directly on the screen with a GPS waypoint to save them for future trips.

Comparable technologies are known as SideVü from Garmin and Side Imaging from Humminbird. It is important to note that the Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot model does not have a Side Imaging function. At Lowrance, this feature is available starting with the 7-inch Eagle models and up.

 

Transducer / Suitability for Kayak Fishing

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot comes bundled with the SplitShot transducer and is ready to use right out of the box with no extra costs. However, due to its 5-inch display, it is less suited for inflatables and belly boats compared to more compact 4-inch models.

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot comes with the SplitShot transducer included, so there are no extra costs, and it’s ready to use right out of the box.

However, with its 5-inch display, the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is often less practical for use on inflatables and belly boats than more compact 4-inch fish finders. For that type of fishing, the following smaller 4-inch models are generally a better fit:

• Garmin Striker 4
• Garmin Striker Vivid 4cv
• Garmin Striker Plus 4
• Lowrance Eagle 4X
• Humminbird Piranha Max 4 DI

Mounting a fish finder varies depending on the type of boat. On inflatables, the transducer is often attached to a solid transom. For belly boats, special strap systems with a mounting plate are ideal, as they can be flexibly attached to one of the air chambers.

For those using rental boats and looking to avoid drilling holes, portable transducer poles or suction cup mounts offer practical and damage-free solutions for installation.

 

Customer Review Roundup: Feedback from Real Owners

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is a popular choice among buyers, a fact backed by over 2200 customer reviews on Amazon that average 4.2 out of 5 stars.

Here’s a look at what customers are saying:

• Great fish finder. Its a screen. Doesnt catch the fish. Have to watch the little live feed on the right side and mark waypoints where fish pop up. Then you can go to the map and check the waypoints and fish that area. Pretty simple.
• This unit is very hard to understand and has way too many options for the technically challenged. After I figured out how to use the basics, I only got half a summer’s use.
• After less than four uses, this thing is almost worthless. The maps became dysfunctional. It needs to be a touchscreen. Fingerprint and water marks make it difficult to read. It’s very difficult to reset the charting, and so much more.
• Works well in some areas of water.
• As described. Exactly what I needed it for.
• It wasn’t the Japanese version.
• Great price! I bought it for 300 bucks Canadian, and it has all you need for lakes in Alberta.

Customer feedback on this fish finder paints a picture of a polarizing user experience, with opinions from across North America, including Canada, and even as far as Japan.

On the positive side, many users praise the unit as a great value, highlighting its affordable price point and effectiveness for specific needs, like lake fishing in Alberta.

These satisfied customers find its core function to be quite simple: they appreciate the straightforward process of watching the live sonar feed, marking waypoints where fish appear, and then using the map to target those areas. For them, it’s an effective tool that does exactly what it’s described to do.

However, a significant number of reviews express deep frustration. A recurring theme is the unit’s complexity, with some users finding it has “way too many options” and a steep learning curve for the “technically challenged.”

More serious points of contention revolve around durability and reliability. There are reports of units becoming nearly “worthless” after just a few uses, with critical features like the maps becoming dysfunctional.

One user noted they only got half a summer’s use out of it. Further hardware critiques include the lack of a touchscreen and a screen that becomes difficult to read once covered in fingerprints or water spots.

This divide in feedback suggests the unit can be a great-value tool for a patient user who is comfortable with technology, but a potential source of frustration for those seeking plug-and-play simplicity and guaranteed long-term durability.

We agree with the feedback that the product description can be somewhat misleading. The title often advertises the “Lowrance Hook Reveal 5,” but what you’re actually getting is the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot model—a GPS-only variant without a full-featured chartplotter.

While there is a microSD card slot, it comes with a major limitation: it cannot be used to read third-party maps, such as those from Navionics. The slot’s only function is to save custom maps you create yourself using the Genesis Live feature.

Depending on the water depth, the very wide 80° cone angle can cover too large of a radius around the boat for precise targeting. Using the known formula for an 80° cone (diameter is roughly 1.68 x water depth), we can see how this plays out.

In just 16 feet of water, you’re scanning a circle with a 27-foot diameter. At a depth of 33 feet, that area expands to a 55-foot diameter. It becomes truly significant in deep water: at a depth of 165 feet, the sonar is covering a massive 277-foot wide area.

Here’s what that means in practice: if a fish appears on your screen at a 165-foot depth, in the worst-case scenario, that fish could actually be up to 138 feet away from your boat. This is why fish finders with extremely wide cone angles are less suited for deep-water fishing.

The Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is certainly a good choice if you primarily fish in shallower waters up to about 35 feet deep or when your target species (like trout, bass and pike) hold in the upper water column.

It’s a good, more powerful alternative with GPS to the Lowrance Eagle 4X (which has a similarly wide 85° cone angle but lacks CHIRP, GPS, and DownScan Imaging). Furthermore, its Autotuning feature makes it very user-friendly.

Lowrance Hook Reveal 5x: Pros and Cons

The Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is a popular choice, with over 670 Amazon buyers rating it highly for its features tailored to specific fishing conditions.

It offers DownScan Imaging for detailed underwater pictures, Autotuning for simple operation, Genesis Live for real-time map creation, plus GPS and CHIRP sonar for a clear view of fish targets. This makes it ideal for anglers targeting fish that hold in shallow water.

However, despite its price, it is not a full-featured chartplotter. The wide 80° cone angle can make pinpointing fish difficult in deep water, and with a maximum depth of 500 feet, it’s less suited for very deep bodies of water.

 

Pros

• Purchased and rated by over 2200 Amazon customers
• DownScan Imaging
• Very easy to use with Autotuning feature
• Create your own custom depth maps with Genesis Live
• GPS
• CHIRP Sonar
• Great for targeting shallow-water species like trout, bass and pike

 

Cons

• Not a true chartplotter, despite a price point of over $300
• Wide 80° cone angle is best suited for depths down to about 35 feet
• The lowest depth rating in our comparison, at up to 500 feet

 

With an impressive track record of over 2200 customer ratings on Amazon, the Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot has clearly proven its popularity among anglers. Its success lies in a powerful yet user-friendly set of features designed for specific fishing styles.

The unit combines the excellent target separation of CHIRP Sonar with the picture-like detail of DownScan Imaging, giving anglers a clear view of both fish and structure.

Key features like GPS for marking hotspots and Genesis Live for creating custom depth maps provide capabilities often found on more expensive models.

All of this is made exceptionally easy to use thanks to the Autotuning feature, making it a fantastic tool for targeting shallow-water species like trout, bass, and pike.

However, it’s crucial for buyers to understand the unit’s limitations. Despite a price point that often exceeds $300, this is not a true chartplotter and cannot load commercial lake maps.

Its design is explicitly for shallower environments; the wide 80° cone angle provides great horizontal coverage but is most effective in depths down to about 35 feet, making it difficult to pinpoint fish in deeper water.

This focus is further highlighted by its maximum depth rating of 500 feet, which is the lowest in our comparison.

In short, the Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot is a feature-packed and easy-to-use powerhouse for the dedicated shallow-water angler, but those needing deep-water performance or full chartplotting will need to consider other options.

 

Frequently Asked Questions About the Lowrance Hook Reveal 5x

 

Does the Lowrance Hook Reveal 5X SplitShot have a chartplotter?

No, this fish finder does not have a chartplotter. Although it includes a microSD card slot, it cannot be used for third-party maps like Navionics. The slot’s sole purpose is to save the custom depth maps you create yourself using the Genesis Live feature.

 

 

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Last Updated on 26/10/2025 at 12:59 AM.