The HB is 640x640 and for 2D Sonar and Down Image you want more Vert Pixels (top to bottom). The Lowrance Elite 7 is 800 x 480 .. so it is wider but shorter. In my opinion that is the wrong way to go for Down Image and 2D sonar. You want as many pixels per depth of water as you can get so things show up larger. Is it a huge issue, probably not, but only you can make that call.
A few other factors .. the HB has two buttons that let you quickly switch screens the view and exit they will scroll between the screens. And you can in the main menu turn off the screens you don’t want, so it makes it quick to jump around. The elite 7, you have to hit the pages button, then scroll to select your screen .. the HB seems to switch screens faster.
Also check out the built-in maps for the lakes you fish, all three of my lakes were missing from the HB not even a blue circle, but the Elite 7 had very good maps. If you have to buy a map card the price goes up another $150 so the HB + map card may cost the same as the elite 7.
I like to take screenshots so I can look at them later, on my HB 998, everytime, I take a screenshot it also makes a gps entry, so my map gets full of gps points. Not sure about how it takes screenshots on the lowrance elite 7. Also if you have a map card in the 1 slot on the HB, I don’t think you can take screenshots, since you can’t write to the map card.
The lowrance has trackback .. which I think is awesome and something I wish my HB had. On the HB, I have to tell it to record my sonar log and then to go back I have to switch to the recording screen and play it back from there. On the Lowrance, you just move the cursor over to the edge of the screen and it scrolls back.
I personally found the elite 7 a little hard to jump around in the menus because there is not a dedicated “exit” key. You may want to play with them both.
When I am hunting for fish I switch constantly between 3 screens on my unit that has 800x480 pixels. Screen 1 is dedicated Side Image, #2 is Down Image/2D Sonar, #3 is Sonar/GPS. The HB 998 has 3 hot buttons that I have set to those screens, then from any one, I can hit the view/exit key and cycle very fast to other screens. I cycle a lot to the full screen GPS.
I know the elite 7 has a screen that has 2D Sonar/Down Image/GPS but everything gets a bit cramped in my opinion. Now because Lowrance can track back, maybe have 3 narrow screens is not that big of a deal, since you can always hit the curser button and scroll the screens back if you missed something.
Best of Luck .. I was wrapped on this for a month before I went with the HB 998. In the end they are both good units.